Suggest a Topic for a4uexpo London : Best Suggestion Wins a FREE Pass!

[Matthew Wood]

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We are busy preparing the a4uexpo London agenda which is now well over 70% complete and which, once complete will have nearly 50 solo and panel discussions sheduled.

I'm really keen to tease out of people what they would like to hear at the conference for the remaining sessions within the affiliate and peripheral industries... which surprisngly is quite difficult!

We get plenty of formal submissions but this conference is for you... so we want to make sure we get it right!

To assist we will give away a FREE pass worth between £395 - £495 to the best suggestion entered below.

Let us know what you feel are the hot topics, topics you'd like us to get speakers for, what we need to cover in detail etc.

How to enter

Please complete in as much detail as possible using the following template;

1. Suggested Session Title
2. Suggested Session Description (Synopsis around 100 words)
3. Suggested Speakers (optional)

We'll pick the best one who'll receive a free pass to the event!

The competition is open to everyone, affiliates, agencies, advertisers and networks as we are keen to hear from all angles.

[R Jones]

Do you want submissions on this thread, or sent directly to you Matt?

[Matthew Wood]

Hi Ricki,

Either directly on this thread or you can enter them formally and let me know in the submission that you've seen this thread

This thread is really for people that don't want to speak themselves but want to hear a particular topic discussed or a certain speaker in the line-up. We'll do our very best to then get them added to the agenda.

[aero_mansoor]

cookie stuffing sites and how best to combat them? (bet it never gets done though)

[Geoffuk]

Title:
So What Do You Do?
Description:
How do you explain what we do? (Affiliate marketing, SEO, PPC, Social Media, etc).
Affiliates get labelled as the 'grubby people', SEO's as 'snake oil salesmen', SM professionals as 'people that bugger about on Facebook'. It's not certainly not IT as many people suggest, but it's not exactly marketing either, not as most people think of it anyway. Basically it's selling something online, but how do you come up with an 'elevator pitch' that makes sense for someone that hasn't a clue what you do?

[Matthew Wood]

cookie stuffing sites and how best to combat them? (bet it never gets done though)

How would you see a session like that being structured?

[FireflySEO]

"Ultimate Black Hat SEO: Tools, Tacktics and Case Studies" panel please. I know its been done before but I think its essential to have something like this to give the conference an extra dimension plus it's always awsome to hear the latest techniques. Any combo of these speakers would be good Bob Rains, DaveN, Robert "RSnake" Hansen, Gary Beal, SEO BlackHat (Quadzilla), Darron Babin, CasinoJack, Sebastian Wenzel, Ralph Tegtmeier, Greg Bosser. Disclaimer at the start of course but covering things like xss, cookie stuffing, click hijacking, tricking affiliates with redirects / cloaking / referal stuffing, toolbars / firefox / ie plugins etc the stuff cookies / refereers, bot nets, link networks, cloaking/doorways and current success rates/content stemming models and current success rates. Link dumping (comment/forum spam etc, tools and success rates for case studies). Particularly interested in tools, case studdies and success rates. Secretly this is what everyone wants. If you can string that together matt, then your a legend.

[nick_idbrokers]

Session Title: "Becoming an affiliate: a reality check"

Synopsis: I would like to see a topic delivering honest and real world advice to people thinking of becoming an affiliate or are new to the world of affiliate marketing. What to expect as a single affiliate and whats involved in setting up an affiliate team. Its great to see that the super affiliates do well but I think the reality of most affiliates lives is that at best affiliate earnings provide a supplementary income to a full time wage. Advice on taking that to the next level and the reality of that process would be invaluable to me and maybe other people in a similar situation who need to make an informed decision about what to do next.

Speakers: not sure who to suggest, but I am sure the industry knows who these people are anyway.

[richardbaxter]

Hi Matt

I already put in for a site architecture / technical SEO panel (don't worry about entering me into the competition on any of this, I'd just love to hear what people think too)

It would be cool to see advanced linkbuilding (Techniques that work: Linkbuilding after May Day)

AND it would be cool to see a Future of Search, Microformats, Structured Data and Real Time Search / Discovery Panel

Along the lines of Fun With PubSubHubbub, Wordpress & Faster Indexation [Real Time Search & Data Distribution] / Using the hReview Microformat for your Review Pages type of thing. Not meant to be self promoting there - as I said, don't worry about the competition buddy.

Richard

[benfriedman]

How about In-House versus Network Versus Agency Run Programmes? Get a leading person from each to talk and then have a debate about the merits of each way of managing/running a programme. Would be interesting to see whether in-house staff can offer the same level of management as the networks or agencies due to knwing the products better etc. Would also be interesting to see the differences in what people find important in all 3 types. For example, an aganecy is concious of providing value for money to show they are worth the fee, the network may be more interested in the robustness of tracking and also the levels of management while someone inhouse may be 100% sales and ROI driven.

just a thought from a merchant thinking about starting a programme and the merits of the different ways of doing so.

[hpops]

Session Title: "Becoming an affiliate: a reality check"

Synopsis: I would like to see a topic delivering honest and real world advice to people thinking of becoming an affiliate or are new to the world of affiliate marketing. What to expect as a single affiliate and whats involved in setting up an affiliate team. Its great to see that the super affiliates do well but I think the reality of most affiliates lives is that at best affiliate earnings provide a supplementary income to a full time wage. Advice on taking that to the next level and the reality of that process would be invaluable to me and maybe other people in a similar situation who need to make an informed decision about what to do next.

Speakers: not sure who to suggest, but I am sure the industry knows who these people are anyway.

Really like this one!

[Renners]

1. The Right Words
2. I've often seen(or been drawn to read) great articles that ultimately sell you something. What are the simple rules to follow on writing great prose that sells.
3. Suggested Speakers - Someone like Shakespeare would do!

Regards,
Phil.

[Jonathan_Chapman]

as it's open to the networks, I thought I would put this out there...

1. Suggested Session Title

Network 101 (or something along those lines)

2. Suggested Session Description (Synopsis around 100 words)

Everyone thinks they know what the networks do, but really? Sometimes I wonder if they really do. From working on a publisher development team for a few years at buy.at, I'm more than familiar with the frustrations of affiliates when working with particular merchants. However, I would like an open session delving into what affiliate networks actually do for the affiliates and merchants, how much control we have over decisions made that we bear the brunt of, how we help the publishers or don’t? Let’s dispel those pre-conceptions, discuss common affiliate frustrations and see if we can help you understand that we work for the benefit of the affiliatess, not just the merchants.

3. Suggested Speakers (optional)

I suppose a panel of 5; 3 networks (maybe 2), 1 agency, 2-3 affiliatess (small or large, varied sectors)

Just putting this out there, obviously could do with some structure. However, a small point would be, that this wouldn't be simply pitching a few networks against each other and ending up with a 'we do this better than you' session, but something more constructive that will help everyone understand our role better.

Cheers

Jon

[hpops]

Large Sumo wrestling bout

Heads of networks wear inflatable sumo suits

Battle in jelly

Winner immediately owns entire affiliate market

[hpops]

Shoot the cookie

Clay pigeon shooting with cookies.

Different affiliate types compete to prove who is the "rightful" last click

All losers are deduped