Those of you who have managed to bear through my sporadic and sometimes useful posts for a while may remember that around this time last year I went down to San Diego for the Ads4Dough meetup. Well, time flows like a river, and history repeats (a million internets to you if you can identify that reference without Googling it).

This Saturday, March 19th, I’ll be making the relatively short drive from LA to San Diego for the 2011 A4D meetup. Last year I only showed up for the day and headed back home. This time around I booked a room at the Hard Rock so that I may further maximize the experience (and avoid drank drivin).

I am excited to hang out with all you nerds. Especially Darrin and Matt. Matt is making my drive from LA look quite trivial since he is traveling across the pond from jolly old England.

Speakers this year will include:

• • Mike Powell
• • Zack Linford
• • James Craig (Facebook dating prodigy)
• • Rob Berkowitz
• • Kris Kibak (media buy master)
• • Smaxor himself

As far as I know, it’s not too late to RSVP if you’re interested. Click here to do so.

So, basically, I went to the A4D meetup in San Diego on Saturday, left for Vegas the next day, spent four days and three nights in a drunken stupor, and now here I am trying to remember what happened on Saturday so I could squeeze a blog post out of it.

First of all, if you wanted to go, you should have went. The lineup alone should have indicated that it would be a very valuable experience. That said, I didn’t even stay for the whole thing, and I took the liberty of a 30 min lunch break right in the middle of the thing (look, if I was any sort of professional, I’d have a real job).

Luckily, I managed to take some notes. I’m not sure if I was taking notes because I thought I was going to forget the info I was receiving, or if I just felt compelled to because people around me were. Using these notes and my hazy memory (I was actually drinking during the meetup as well…this blog is really more or less a cry for help), I will now attempt to go over what I saw.

First Speaker: DK from Purposeinc

Seemed like a nice enough guy, but was visibly intimidated by the room. Maybe he wasn’t expecting so many aff marketing pros to show up. He referenced info he had “got from Shoe” a couple times, which was enough to make half the room take him less seriously. He also went into detail about testing creatives for Facebook ads, showing case studies with different creatives and what sort of CTR each one got. Trouble is, only like $7 was spent on each test. With people in the room spending five figures a day on FB alone (if not more), this seemed a little silly to me.

To make matters worse, towards the end of his presentation he casually mentions that he has NDAs in place with Facebook. This was in response to Jason inquiring about shadier methods of getting ads approved. Although he wasn’t willing to suggest any new tricks or system manipulations, he seemed open to the discussion. “Anything said at this conference will not leave this conference by me”, DK reassured us. But, still, c’mon.

Although I wasn’t impressed with his Facebook know-how (or conflicts of interest), I must say that DK knew his shit when it came to local campaigns. It was evident that local was his strong suit. Probably why he saved it for last.

Hagan – Talkin’ ‘Bout Leadgen

I liked this guy. At first it seemed like no one was paying attention but eventually they realized he knew what he was talking about and settled down. The gist of Hagan’s presentation was about how continuity offers are no longer sustainable, and how leadgen is the foreseeable future of AM.

He had a nice little breakdown of how to presell offers based on payout that I think might be helpful for a lot of folks, especially the nooblings. Here is that breakdown in a nutshell:

- Low Paying Offers (Email/Zip Submits, etc) – Direct Link
- Medium Payouts (Insurance, Edu, etc) – Short forms/bridge pages with a short pitch, big call to action.
- High Payouts (Mortgage, that kind of jazz) – Long pitch, very few calls to action.

He also offered a list of books that he thinks affiliate marketers should be familiar with:

1. Ca$hvertising
2. Simple and Direct
3. Blink
4. Extraordinary Popular Delusions

MikeTPowell on PPV

After I stumbled back in to the Legends conference room, having just enjoyed a tuna melt at MaryJane’s Cafe in the Hard Rock Hotel, Mike was already well into his presentation on running PPV campaigns. My notes started getting short and vague at this point. One point that Mike stressed repeatedly is that you absolutely must use a landing page when running PPV, regardless of the offer. If you think about the nature of PPV traffic, this makes a lot of sense.

The Lawyer

There was a surprise appearance by Rob Berkowitz, a senior associate attorney at Coast Law Group, a firm that A4D works closely with. Rob went into detail about how we are all 100% guilty for stealing images and ignoring trademark laws, and how we will all pay dearly for it one day. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, though. For a lawyer.

The Rest

I swore on a bible that Nickycakes was carrying in his back pocket that I wouldn’t disclose any of teh bigg secretz. Same goes for Smax and Dr Ngo.

Guess you better come to the next fucking meetup!

<3

A lot of networks are fond of giving gifts to reward their top affiliates. Common gifts include gift cards, TVs, the occasional hooker, etc.

But Smaxor over at Ads4Dough really took it up a notch this time.

I was minding my own business, talking about apple cider on IRC, when all of a sudden I hear a knock at the door. Lo and behold, Smaxor himself, along with a hired driver. I knew it must be important if he was willing to drive three hours and meet me in person. Naturally I assumed a felony conviction must be somewhere in my future. Boy was I wrong!

In the envelope he handed me were the keys to a new Mercedes Benz! I was a little disappointed at first since it’s only a C-class, but Smaxor explained that what with the economy and everything, they couldn’t really go all out for small time guys like me. I think I’ve sent around 10 leads through them so far this year.

Anyway, here it is:

The girl wasn’t with them, she just showed up as I was posing for the picture. It’s actually a really funny story how she happened to be in my neighborhood. I’d have her tell it here herself but she’s in the shower right now. Maybe I’ll save that for a later post.

Ads4Dough rocks!