Commision Junction University 2005 Roundup - Part 1
- By: Linda Buquet [privmsg - website] On 21st Sep 2005
During my high tech career over the past 20 years, I have been to LOTS of conferences, trade shows and events. For example way back in 86 attended Apple’s official GALA launch of the very 1st Mac. Anyone remember that? Now that was a glitzy affair. Back then I was Sales Manager of Bell Atlantic CompuShop. A year later I won an award from Epson for top sales. The prize??? All expense paid 1 week tour of Japan. 200 winners from all over the world traveled the country. Epson put us up in 5 star hotels in Tokyo, we rode the bullet train and stayed in quaint little Japanese Inns where we were waited on hand and foot by real geisha girls. I remember one night after those Geishas poured me WAAAAYYYYYY too much sake, running down the halls of a 5 star hotel at 2 in the morning screaming BONZAI and karate chopping all the plants. I almost got kicked out! Well so much for the trip down memory lane. I was thinking about some of the good old days on the long drive back from CJU, which leads me back to the reason I bring some of this up.
In my 20 year history in the technology industry I have been to more high tech conferences and events than I can even count, but I have to say CJU was a stand-out. One the best events I have ever had the pleasure of attending! I strongly encourage anyone that wants to go next year to put in an Outlook reminder NOW and be sure you register next year the 1st day they announce it. I think this year the event sold out in the 1st 7 days and I know many people that could not get in. If you consider yourself a player in this industry, whether you are a merchant or affiliate this is an event that you simply cannot miss.
EVENT OVERVIEW
The hotel was phenomenal with many of the large group events taking place out in a beautiful open air Rotunda with an Ocean view. The food was fantastic. The 1st day at lunch, expecting the typical conference chicken dish, we were pleasantly surprised by an all you can eat buffet which included gourmet prawns and scallops. All the meals were awesome and were out in the Rotunda. The location and accommodations just could not get any better.
The courses, at least all the ones I attended, were extremely informative and well done. I will be covering them in more detail in part 2. Everything was on-time and well orchestrated by tons of CJ and ValueClick staff who all proved to be gracious hosts.
I think there were around 500 people there. I saw lots of industry friends and gurus and got to meet a lot of great new people – affiliates, merchants and service providers. Wow we have a lot of talented, brilliant people in our industry! I have so many new ideas to implement and actually learned a lot at this conference. I went mainly for the networking WHICH WAS PRICELESS, but came away with so much more than that.
The Keynote Address was made by - John Battelle, Chairman, Federated Media Publishing. It was titled “Search, Blogs and Web 2.0: The Role of Publishers in an Intent Driven World”. How can someone with such a brilliant mind, deliver that dynamic of a speech with such calm humility? What a genius and a great speaker! I would definitely keep my eye on John’s new company FMpublishing. Follow this guys lead. We also each got a copy of his new book. “The Search” - About the rise of Google—and how the search industry is changing the way we live in profound and unpredictable ways.
CJU - TO BE CONTINUED…
I’m blogging this before I even read email or begin to try playing catch up. Have not even checked my 5 star forum or scanned the blogs to see what others have to say about CJU. So this is just a tiny overview which will turn into a 3 or 4 part series.
When I have time I will cover the sessions. My favorite 3 were Deep Linking and Beyond – Best Practices for Data Feed Optimization, The Low Down on Downloads and The Dating Game - Affiliate Style. Now I will just tease you with the fact that this was NOT a boring old panel discussion about how to find the right partners – which is what I was expecting. It was THE Dating Game. The music, the format – everything except Chuck Woolery! I was sitting with Shawn Collins, Heather from X10 and Linda Woods from PartnerCentric. We were practically ROLLING on the floor. It got pretty spicy and showed us what a great sense of humor CJ has.
I will cover some new products and services that are coming from CJ and other companies. I’ll also share links to some of the other good blogs about CJU so you can hear the news I missed, since there was just so much going on. I’m sure Lisa from Revenue Magazine already has a blog up. She was taking good notes and blogging from the event at night I think. Shawn and others probably already have blogs ups too.
My last blog of this series will cover the 3 P’s. Some of the People, the Parties and the Pics. I’ll blog after I catch up a bit. In the meantime, feel free to ask specific questions about the event or share your experience if you were there. Stay tuned for CJU Redux Part 2...
Linda Buquet 5 Star Affiliate Programs
CJU Part 2
Today I will be covering the CJU Award winners and my favorite 4 sessions. I will also share some new products and services that are coming from CJ and other companies, as well as links to some of the other good blogs about CJU so you can hear the news from different angles.
COMMISSION JUNCTION HORIZON AWARDS
Some other bloggers have covered the awards, so I will just quote from and link to one. Lisa from the RevenueToday blog has a good 2 part overview of the event and she took much better notes than I did, so go read what she had to say. From her blog, here is the list of award winners. Congrats to all.
The Goyami Blog did a fun post. The CJU Schwag Awards.
CJU SESSION COVERAGE
I'll try to do a quick summary of key points from my favorite 3 sessions: The Dating Game - Affiliate Style, Deep Linking and Beyond – Best Practices for Data Feed Optimization and last but not least The Low Down on Downloads.
The Dating Game - Affiliate Style was an absolute HOOT and a big hit with the audience who needed some good laughs to provide shots of oxygen to their brains after the previous night of partying. It was THE Dating Game. The music, the format – everything except Chuck Woolery! CJ really did some great scripting. Can't remember exactly who said what to who, so let me just give you a taste of what it was 'kinda' like. Female affiliate, looking for a hot connection interviews 3 potential merchants. She says - "Bachelor #1 why should I pick you for a partner?" He says "My program is BIG, I mean really, REALLY big. (Stretches hands wide.) Trust me, I can satisfy your every need!" She says: "Bachelor #3, you said earlier, your program was really good and sure to please. Tell me all the juicy details about your most exciting affiliate tool." R-rated response follows. Bachelor (affiliate program manager #2) was a woman. They talked about how they could meet each others needs and some of the sexual innuendos caused Bachelor #1 to declare he really wanted to do some 3 way cross promotion with them both. Hysterically funny!
Deep Linking and Beyond – Best Practices for Data Feed Optimization
This was a really good session, designed more for merchants. CJ stressed the need for clean feeds with all the subcategories and really went into about every aspect of feeds that I constantly hear affiliates complaining about. Some merchants just don't get how important good feeds are and CJ really tried to drive some points home to the merchants that attended. Part of the push to invest time and energy into optimizing feeds now is to prepare for some exciting new innovations CJ has in the works. New web services for datafeeds are slated for early 06 that will allow more affiliates to utilize feeds in dynamic and creative new ways, even if they aren't programmers. Vinny Lingham has some good commentary about the datafeed session as well as other sessions over on his blog. Go check it out.
The Low Down on Downloads This panel featured Todd Crawford, Vice President, Sales, Commission Junction - Erika Tegman, Publisher Account Director, Commission Junction - Mike Weller, CEO, Top Moxie - Terance Kinsky, Director, Network Quality, Commission Junction - Wayne Porter, Senior Director of Greynets Research, FaceTime Communications. I was pleasantly surprised by this session. I guess I expected some sugar coating, denial and defensive posturing. Maybe too many forum conspiracy theories were dancing in my head. Todd did a great job of moderating and it was a really open, frank discussion of the issues that surround download apps and potential overwriting of affiliate links. I learned a lot about the process Network Quality must go through and why. I got to air my concerns about my belief that download apps CJ allows in the network, help spread the proliferation of ad blockers and anti-spyware apps that target CJ links and cookies. I didn't get a chance to give my big long sermon about how although I appreciate the COC and any efforts made to protect honest affiliate's revenue - forcing them to be the ones to take the extra protective step of appending the afsrc=1 to protect their hard earnded commission is unjust. Save that one for another day.
The Evolving Landscape of Search-based Media Just one other that I want to make a quick reference to. This one featured Gary Stein, Senior Analyst, Jupiter Research - Daniel Boberg, Director Strategic Alliances, Yahoo! Search Marketing - David Jakubowski, General Manager, MSN Search Strategy - James Beriker, General Manager, ValueClick Search - Tom Gerace, President and CEO, Gather, Inc. I liked this session because it helped me think outside the traditional search box and got more into new ad models revolving around contextual marketing, blogs, social networks and pay-per-call. Gather will be officially launching in October. May want to keep an eye on their model.
Well I'm about blogged out on CJU. Need to go get some work done. If you have any comments or questions post below.