ASW 2013 Recap and Mobile

Affiliate Summit West 2013 has come and gone, and mobile is still the red headed step child of the show. With 40% of emails opened on mobile devices, record levels of smart phone activations in the US, and more time spent on a phone year over year, I’m still dumbfounded how little so many people know about mobile marketing. In a way it’s a good thing for us since it allows us to stay ahead of the curve, but at the same time it makes it hard because I don’t have too many people with whom to share ideas and strategies with.

Anyway here are my highlights from a mobile perspective:

MobAff Mobile Meetup – For those of you who missed it, we gave away a Lambo full of cash to the winner of our little mobile beer pong championship. It was great to be an environment where everyone spoke mobile. Shout out to Dr Ngo , (best affiliate blogger right now) Moolah Team , TapIt and SendDroid

ASW Exhibit - Although I’d say 25% of booths had the word “mobile” somewhere in their information, when actually talking about mobile it was clear that most companies weren’t really doing anything yet. I ran into Barman who introduced me to some guy carrying a cardboard cutout with “I need mobile traffic” written on it. I told the guy we can help him get app installs on a CPA basis to which he said he only wants to rev share based on in app purchases. He then proceeded to tell me the “beauty” of the games, but couldn’t answer a simple question like what is his Life Time Value from a new user. So let me get this straight you want me to take on all the risk of marketing and buying traffic and wait weeks sometimes months before those revenues are realized? I hope there is no company out there stupid enough to work on those kinds of terms.

For anyone who wants to try mobile CPA here are some tips:

- Play with your own money first to get some kind of baseline CPAs that back out for you

- Manage your channels carefully by using caps and adjusting CPA pricing to reflect quality of traffic

- Use a tracker like MobAff Tracker to discover what devices, carriers, sources, ads bring in the most qualified users

I then ran into Ruck who is always fun to chat with. He is one of the few guys who’s tackling mobile head on, much respect. I topped off the day with some great meetings with Millenial, Airpush, and some of our top advertisers.
ASW Parties - I’m not much of a clubbing type, I’m more of a dive bar with 10 car bombs kind of guy, so I can’t really comment on the big club parties. I did try to go catch Affiliate Ball for a bit, but seeing a bunch of dudes standing around in Bikram  Yoga like sweat box didn’t appeal to me. Only party I wish I went to was the STM Meetup but although I heard great things there is no way it can top the “Here for the Gangbang” password for the secret bar in San Francisco.

Overall another great show, but it is clear that the industry is growing up. I heard a lot of affiliates talk about building their own offers, traffic, or services. Although I respect the move up the value chain, all new endeavors come with challenges and obstacles you can’t predict until you have to face them. Remember if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! For now enjoy having the freedom of being an affiliate, working whenever you want, traveling, earning as much or as little as you need, having networks buy you drinks and showing you a good time!

One last note about the upcoming ASE. I know there are a lot of people hating on Philly as the new destination, but as someone who’se been to way to many Affiliate Summits I’m kind of excited for the change of pace.