Adtech New York is always a great time, with lots of cool, innovative people to meet. Networking is a skill that should get better with time, and Adtech is a great place to practice your networking skills. But is conference networking something you do entirely for selfish purposes? I don’t thing it should be. When you go to a big internet marketing convention like Adtech, you should go to have a fun and meet business connection. Some people are more serious about getting business out of it and some people are more concerned with partying it up. I think you should land somewhere in the middle. I absolutely think everyone should go and take it serious and not slack in trying to meet people and exchange business cards. However, most of the business deals get done at the hotel bars. The parties and night clubs aren’t really that great, because a lot of times you don’t know that many people that actually make it there and it gets old really quick. You can sometimes find your self in an interesting discussion or 2 so I think the evening function have some potential.

ADtech is primarily a search engine and performance based marketing show. There are many “SEO companies” and affiliate networks that are vying for all the potential clients in attendance. I don’t even stop at SEO company booths because I already have SEO and PPC experience and don’t need their services. Sometimes it is interesting to hear their pitches and play along for a bit. Meeting people at the show is all what you put into it. If you aren’t afraid to just introduce yourself to someone standing next to you, you can really make some great contacts and even some friends. So make sure to go to this years Adtech NewYork, look for me..I’ll be there!

I have been attending Internet marketing and affiliate marketing conferences for years and I am always lets feeling that I wasn’t able to really maximize my time there. Which for me means learning new concepts and ideas, as well as networking with other people in the internet industry to conduct “business development”. I really see a huge need for a really awesome Internet Marketing and Affiliate Conference that blows all the others away. Most of the affiliate conferences current being held lack actual affiliates to large extent and are heavy on affiliate networks (due to the cost). I have been floating this idea around for some time now and 2008 appears to be the year we do this! Yes it will have an exhibition hall with sponsors like all the other (this pays the bills). Our conference will be extremely inexpensive if not free to all affiliates to encourage attendance. Would Affiliate Summit or Webmasterworld venture to do this? I think not. Our affiliate conference will focus primarily on seo, ppc, and affiliate methods of driving traffic. Lectures on content, linking, site building, rss, and other standard webmaster topics will be featured. Heavy focus will be on networking. We are planning to poll known super-affiliates and beginners as to what they would like the agenda to be. It looks like South Florida is a natural choice since Experience Advertising is based here, either Fort Lauderdale or South Beach. SoBe is cool because it has a lot of cool clubs and beautiful people. I will be tapping into our vast rollodex of affiliates to drive up attendence. Our conference will cater to affiliates first and foremost and not to networks. If you are interested in attending our affiliate conference you can contact me or if you have any suggestions on how to make our affiliate conference better than the rest, we are all ears! Have a great year and get out there and build some sites!