STM Whistler, and STM London

Soaring thousands of miles above the ground as I write this on a business class flight from London to Madrid, I once again find myself thinking of the best way to summarize my recent travel experiences into a short, fun to read blog post. After ASW in Vegas, I joined a group of guys and gals for a meetup organized in whistler by STM for some snowboarding and networking. It was a blasty blast.

STM
STM Whistler

It’s a pity the snow gods were cruel, as it rained pretty heavily for 2 out of the 3 days creating a mash-potato mountain to board down, but we all made the most of it – especially Jason Akatiff. That man can out-party me any day. I love these events, they’re a great opportunity to network in a fun environment as well as find some leisure time too.

Post whistler, I flew over to Calgary for a week to see some close friends, meet up with a friend who I helped get into affiliate marketing and managed to sneak in a day of snowboarding before flying back over to San Diego. I made it out to the A4D/Charles Ngo meetup which was a short, but cool little networking event, and I also stopped off in Irvine for a short business meeting.

Dodge Charger in San Diego
Dodge Charger in San Diego

I had to play a lot of catch-up with work whilst in SD, so the downtime I was given was a godsend. For those who travel a lot like me, get yourself a portable USB monitor! Best thing since Quest Bars. I recommend the ASUS MB168B+ HD if you can get your hands on one. They were pretty hard to find when I was on the hunt for one.  Here’s a link to the one I’m referring to.

I stopped off in Miami for 4 days and hung out with an advertiser who’s in the process of doing a soft-launch of his diet offer and then I flew over to New York for a week prior to getting over to London. I got downgraded from First Class to Coach on this flight due to an equipment change, to which American Airlines compensated me with a $500 voucher. Needless to say I was pretty cranky as I didn’t get the frequent flyer miles or status points for a First Class flight, nor was I provided lunch… but I guess the $500 voucher softens the blow? #firstworldproblems

Once in NYC, I caught up with my buddy Andrew from Melbourne who happened to be in town. We went to Williamsburg and ate at Café Mogador which was a really sweet spot to grab brunch. Recommended!

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I also caught up with one of my Affiliate Managers who works for Leadonomics over in Northport and discussed what was doing well on the network. Solar and Mortgage Refinancing are solid niche’s to focus on from what I am told. I’m yet to verify said claims, but hey, give it a go on Display traffic, you might get rich.

Moving on to STM London… oh my – what an awesome meetup. Over 600 people attended this year, the capacity was a total blowout. On the first night myself and a few friends couldn’t even get in to the first set of speeches as the conference room had completely filled up. I enjoyed a handful of the speeches, but some others could use improvement.

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There were 2 nights of speeches/talks and 3 nights of partying/networking. A large group of us decided to go for dinner instead of heading out for drinks the first night, but attended the 2nd night’s shenanigans, which was hosted a bowling alley with foosball tables and a full-service bar. The party was sponsored by Adsimilis (thanks Sean!) and was a shitload of fun.

Bowling / Foosball Party
Bowling / Foosball Party

The next night there was a party at Core Bar which was hosted by Advidi – great fun, but a little too loud and inappropriate for networking. I did derive a lot of value from this meetup, namely the push to hire virtual assistants / employees and build a team as opposed to flying solo. I am truly at a stage where the only way I can scale up to new heights is to get the help.

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Staying Fit Whilst Traveling:

  • In Miami, I went to Crunch Fitness. I had a friend hook-up 3 free days for me luckily, but normally it’s incredibly expensive. Average sized gym, not a tonne of equipment.
  • In Northport I went to Gold’s Gym. I paid $40 USD for a week pass, which only used 3-4 times, as one of the days the gym was closed due to snow outside. Decent enough if for some strange reason you’re out in Northport for a week. No idea why you would be (good friend of mine lives there and I wanted to avoid Manhattan).
  • In London, I went to YMCA Central a few times (3-day trial pass available online), Soho Gyms in Soho (free day pass on the website, they ask for 5 pounds, but I didn’t have to pay) and easyGym (10 pound day pass, pain in the ass to get in and register). YMCA gym is a large complex with a small weights room and mediocre machines room. I didn’t like the layout of this place but I guess it was good enough to get something done. Soho gyms was a small gym too, it wasn’t too crowded when I went and I had a good session there. Their regular drop in rates is ridiculous though. easyGym, was a decent sized complex, but you can tell they cut corners where they could (I mean, it’s the same company that owns easyJet). If you’re going to be in town for a week or more, you can sign up for a month I believe for 24-25 pounds which is reasonable, but for a drop in day pass, it’s 10 pounds (at the time, $20 AUD) which isn’t the cheapest. Gotta do what you gotta do.

 

I’m now on a flight over to Madrid / Valencia to spend time hanging out with some affiliate friends for about a week and check out the Las Fella’s Festival where they burn a bunch of trippy statues!

 

Til next time!

 

-Andy

 

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Affiliate Summit West 2015 – Quick Recap

Early January saw to one of the largest conferences in the word for Affiliate Marketing, based in Las Vegas Nevada, the city of sin — the city of shame and regret. My liver has survived yet another Affiliate Summit! Woohoo! Every year that I attend these summits, they’re more and more productive, I network with more intention and confidence – I now know what I want. Experience is the biggest advantage as an affiliate marketer in all aspects. Having the ability to filter out the BS from the good (there’s plenty of both), knocking down the ditzy “affiliate managers” that are hired to look pretty and approach affiliates to recruit them for their network, yet they have no idea about the industry. Spare me.

Bellagio Fountains / Paris Hotel
Bellagio Fountains / Paris Hotel

I dropped by the floor all 3 days of the conference which was a new record. I was actually quite tame with my drinking this time around thankfully… minus perhaps the Saturday night where myself and some compadre’s got a table a Marquee, drank a little too much, and eventually got escorted out by security for ‘misconduct’.. #vegas ..

Table at Marquee
Table at Marquee w Adam/Jake/Mike/Joey

The summit this year was actually ridiculously busy. The line up to grab your pass on the first day was insanely large, leading me to leave twice and come back later to pick it up. If there were any piece of advice I could give to you for these summits, would be, get a really good set of business cards created – something memorable – and network like a beast. I made a simple, yet memorable set of cards with VistaPrint for ASE last year and had some people remember who I was from when they had asked for my card a second time. I saw some other affiliate cards, a handful of which were really well done but the majority were vanilla, black text on a white card style.

Busy line up for pass collection
Busy line up for pass collection

The first night prior to heading out, I had dinner with an advertiser who I’ve worked with for around 7 months at the Eiffel Tower restaurant. The food there was so damn good, I still have wet dreams about it. Much delicious.

The next night after the first Saturday night Marquee slosh-fest, a group of us attended the STM party at Ghost Bar. I caught up with a tonne of good industry friends whilst trying my very hardest to stay awake. Caffeine was consumed in copious amounts that day.

View from Ghost Bar
View from Ghost Bar

Myself and some others decided that if we were going to attend Convert2Media’s Tropic Beauty party at Hakkasan that night, that we’d need a pre-party nap. Yeah…. we all know that never works well. We all ended up ‘napping’ from 10pm-3am and decided to just skip partying that night and save our energy for Monday night. Unfortunately this meant we missed out on Dan Bilzerian making an appearance with his crew of 700 women.

Moving on to Monday night, a few of us attended the Adsimilis meetup at the Cosmo and mingled, then had dinner with F5Media and a bunch of their affiliates at Olives (Bellagio). Delicious… but very small portions…

A group of us then we ended up partying in a Bungalow in the Cosmopolitan which was hired out by some friends who are some of the bigger affiliates. in the industry. The bungalow opened up directly to Club Marquee which was pretty convenient, so the party went on into the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t make it back to my hotel until 5am and I somehow powered through the last day of the conference, meeting with several people on the floor and having about 10 impromptu meetings along the way back to my hotel with people I bumped into.

Exhibition Hall
Exhibition Hall

Afterwards  I went and chilled out with Sonny Palta and Todd Hebert from Affiliati and saw the legendary Josh Ogle for about an hour at the Chandalier bar at Cosmo talking shop, Facebook, offers and whatnot.  That night, I went over to gamble with Jordan  & Lorenzo from STM and Jaimmie & Georgia from F5 Media at the Cosmo.. A few of us won some money, which we exchanged for copious amounts of Sushi at Sushi Roku! Recommended!

Sushi Roku
Sushi Roku, Open your eyes Jordan

For my gym activities, I must admit, I only made it 3 times this trip for some relatively rushed workouts at the Aria Gym. A decently equipped gym — but nothing to write home about. No bench press/squat rack here.

Post workout mandatory elevator selfie
Post workout mandatory elevator selfie.. 

I forgot to mention, on my previous two stop overs in LA/SD, the gym’s I trained at Easton Gym (LA) and EOS Fitness (Previously Gold’s Gym) in San Diego. Easton is a small gym on Beverly Boulevard near the farmers market and is half-decent. They charge $20 drop in, or $10 if you know a member.

EOS Fitness let you train free if you train with a friend (which I did). The gym is very well equipped and has an indoor/outdoor training area where guests are allowed to workout shirtless. I did not participate in such shirtless-ness.

Post Vegas, saw me head to Whistler, Canada for the STM meetup, which has since concluded. I will write a short summary of that soon as I find a moment to recap. Lots of fun and a great opportunity to network.

Til next time.

-Andy

 


If you’re looking for further Affiliate Marketing Guidance, check out StackThatMoney. Best community of experienced marketers from around the globe, exclusive meetups, follow along’s, tutorials and the knowledge of a thousand sun-gods.

 

Can’t Decide on Tracking Software?

I’ve recently switched over to a new tracking platform called Thrive by the guys over at iPyxel which I love. It’s still in development, but is constantly improving and making strides, and the best part about it can be self-hosted. The offer a 30-day trial and it’s $99 a month thereafter which is well worth the investment.

Those on a smaller budget can still opt to go the CPVLab route, another favorite of mine but a little more outdated. It is, however, more suitable for PPV traffic if that’s your traffic of choice.

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