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Affilicon 10 Predictions for 2009 |
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Note the Dates
January 3, 2009 - 11:17pm
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We start here a series of predictions
to be presented at the beginning of each year and be
examined at the end of the year. We acknowledge that we are
biased and would like to see on-line marketing growing over
the years. However, we believe we walk on solid ground as we
have enough data from previous years.
The e-commerce market will grow at a rate of 20% compared
to 2008
The tough economic climate will accelerate the need for many
offline vendors to offer their products online. Online
marketing has proven itself as the most cost effective way
of reaching targeted audience and as a safe way to increase
sales. We predict more insurance companies, banks, car
vendors, electronics retailers, travel agencies to go online
this year.
Number of affiliates will significantly grow and
competition will be stiffer
A clear move of offline hi tech and marketing veteran
will enter the online marketing market this year. While
competition will be more intense, some new comers will shine
and will join the existing super affiliates due to new
techniques or new marketing concepts to be introduced by
them.
Online Ad spending will grow 10%
Most analysts predict that ad spending at TV, newspaper
and radios will decrease in 2009. We believe that Internet
spending will grow at least 10% as it was already proven as
more targeted and better monitored. We believe that Video
ads will grow over 50% while static banners spending will
slow down.
Cellular ads will wait for 2010
While a lot of trials campaigns will be experiment
during 2009, it will take one more year before it will
become a mainstream media.
PPC growth will slow down but still grow 5% over 2008
Google growing dominance of the paid search results at a
higher PPC price. This will impact the advertisers and will
decrease the number of total clicks bookings. However, new
players constantly enter this segment and the Google will
experience moderate growth.
Social networks will become more an online marketing tool
in 2009 and spending will increase 25%
More and more advertisers experience the power of social
networking. We will see more and more PPC campaigns and much
higher spending with video. Youtube will finally become a
decent ad platform.
Content will remain the king
During 2009 we will see more and more budgets and time
spend in writing quality and garbage content. Initial tests
will content generating robots will show (unfortunately)
good results.
Spam will become a less productive way of online
marketing
The strength of Anti-Spam engines, the laws being in
effect in many countries, the reduce number of zombie
computers and the general antagonism will make email
campaigns less effective and the conversion will go below
0.3%.
The world will become a safer place
The western world war against terrorism and extreme
movements will finally reduce the number of terrorists
attack and 2009 will be remembered as turn point year.
Affilicon Spring will attract over 1500 people and over 70
exhibitors
Well, this will be simple to evaluate and final results will
be published during the first week of June
Have a great year! |
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Note the Dates
December 31, 2008 - 11:11pm
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The Affilicon group would like to wish
each one of you a great new year. We believe that the
affiliation market is posed to grow this year and to
generate great returns to the ones who are dedicated,
professional and committed.
Looking forward to seeing you all at the Affilicon Spring
June 1-2nd in Israel..
May all your plans and wished be fulfilled this year. |
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Note the Dates
December 13, 2008 - 12:17pm
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AS we selected the Venue, we had to
change the dates to be the 1st and 2nd of June and not as
advertised before. |
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Launching Affilicon Spring 2009
December 7, 2008 - 11:11pm
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We are very pleased to launch the
official site of Affilicon Spring, 2009- the second
International affiliates conference and exhibition. This
time much bigger, 1200-1500 attendees ( with over 500 from
abroad) and over 70 exhibitors. Agenda is getting shaped
now, floor plan will be distributed soon, and some more
keynote speakers will be announced down the road.
We are 7 months before the conference and will do our best
to make it the best worldwide affiliate conference ever
conducted!
See you all there |
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8 Days ago....
December 2, 2008 - 11:51am
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Affilicon 2008 is over. I could not
imagine in my wildest dreams that the event will be so
successful. Being an affiliate for the last 9.5 years, I
felt since 2003 that such an event will have a great demand
and can gather some of the brightest people in the industry.
Through the years I have talked to many of my colleagues,
the affiliates and to many vendors and they all have agreed
that the right place for an international affiliates event
is Israel. Flying to various places in the world at an
airplane packed with Israeli affiliates and vendors and
hearing Hebrew all around at any affiliates conference
around the globe made it very clear that an event should be
organized in Israel.
From the very beginning I was shooting for the highest
international standards with some Israeli unique flavors.
The place selected (Shefayim convention center) at the heart
of a kibbutz located by the Mediterranean sea provided a
very unique, relaxed, different surrounding. Seeing 100s of
people networking at the green gardens sitting on sofas and
pillows was a great success. The cinema auditorium was a
perfect place to conduct the sessions and actually it is the
first time that I see 70%+ of the audience at all sessions!
Food was great (we have selected a top chef) and the party
was awesome. The exhibition halls were adjacent to the
auditorium, at the same floor and all exhibitors were very
happy with the amount of leads generated. We took notes so
that the few glitches, such as the long queue at the first
day, will be improved at the next one.
The 535 Israelis and the 132 attendees from abroad have
attended high level sessions, a good exhibition which had a
mixture of vendors, media companies and Affiliate networks,
great atmosphere for networking and a lot of FUN.
I never thought it will be such an effort to get it done but
the end result and the great feedback I got from most of you
is the reward.
No time to relax. We have already selected the venue for the
Affilicon Spring and this time it will be a much larger
place, a top class convention center, but once again with
some Israeli flavor. Expect to be surprised. Not yet another
hotel in the middle of the city. Affilicon Spring will host
1200-1500 attendees with over 500 expected from abroad. 70+
vendors ( mostly from abroad) will be exhibiting, great
sessions and keynote speakers are expected and a lot of
networking and fun.
Affilicon could not be a success without your support ,
advise and help. I want to thank all of you. It was great
hosting you.
Looking forward to hosting you again at Affilicon Spring
2009. |
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8 Days to go....
November 17, 2008 - 08:12am
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The gates are going to be opened in 8
days. The conference handbook and the various banners are at
the printer. Conference bag has arrived from China.
Marketing material from various vendors abroad is getting
packed at our offices. "Live person" is constantly beeping
with people asking questions about registration and room
booking. With 530 people already registered we know it is
going to be packed, warm and interesting.
We are very pleased with the amount of interest the
conference generates and the general positive feedback we
get from various individuals in the industry. The amount of
international attendees makes us to believe that next year
Affilicons will become the place to be for anyone who is
operating Affiliate program and for all major affiliates in
the world.
The Affilicon team is very committed to make Affilicon a
professional, to be remembered event ( and we are sure that
next one will be even better and bigger.)
Be ready for further announcements about parties and more
surprises. |
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New Media Partner to Affilicon -
WickedFire
November 16, 2008 - 09:12am
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We have a great new media partner to
Affilicon:
WickedFire - It is great to have them as our
partners and we hope to build together a better future for
all :) thanks Jon!
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The art of Online marketing 2
November 7, 2008 - 06:12am
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Following my previous blog posted on
September 4th I thought I will update you with our progress.
Our continuous effort pays off. We have now over 20,000
mentions when you search Affilicon at Google. 400+
participants have already registered (80+ are coming from
abroad) .Exhibition is almost sold out. Our Facebook group
has grown to almost 750 members. We have almost 500 daily
visitors to the Affilicon.com site (50% are not from
Israel).
We have just launched a banner campaign at some relevant
sites and we forecast increased traffic and registration for
the conference.
Look at Yediot Achronut this coming Friday (October 31st). A
double spread article is planned.
We are very excited about the level of interest and we are
sure Affilicon will be a corner stone for the affiliation
industry in Israel.
See you all at Affilicon on November 24-25th. |
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35 days to Go
October 19, 2008 - 07:12am
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The last 2 weeks were crazy here. As I
wrote in my last blog post, the past 2 weeks we were working
around the clock even throughout the holidays, weekends,
anything to close the gap. Between our business and
Affilicon we are juggling to make it all happening. So where
are we at? we are progressing fast, more and more sponsors
are joining the Affilicon as well as attendees. We expect to
have the event a blowout. So what should you expect to to
have there? First is the full 2 fully packed days with
sessions revolving affiliate marketing: SEO, SEM,
Pay-Per-Click, Web2.0, Videos etc'. We have announced our 2
keynote speakers to be Noam Lanir, CEO of Livermore
Investments (ex. Empire Online, the biggest affiliate ever
in the world) and Gigi Levy, CEO of 888 Holdings. Then we
have an exhibition - Affiliates can meet merchants,
affiliate programs and service providers which they can do
business with. Finally lots of networking...this is one of
the secrets of success of conferences...get to know people,
affiliates, colleagues, competitors and more. And don't miss
out the Party!!! more details on the party will be released
shortly. |
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Less Than 2 Months to Go
October 4, 2008 - 11:44pm
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At Israel many celebrate the Jewish
New Year these days. Not too many working days (some work 10
days all October!!! can you believe it?!). There are less
than 2 months to go to the launch of the conference and
things looking great. We are almost done with all the
sponsorships and exhibitors. There is going to be a great
party (details will be published soon) and new attendees are
registering daily. There is a good chance the event will be
sold out a few weeks before the event date. If you are
planning on coming, I suggest you register now as we will
might have to close registration and refuse attendees as
soon as we get to the full capacity of the event. Shana Tova
to all! |
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We Want You to Write :)
September 28, 2008 - 10:22am
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We have launched a new section in the
site called "Affiliate Marketing Articles"
(see in the left menu). If you are in the Affiliate
Marketing Industry and think you can contribute to others
with your knowledge and thoughts we will be happy to get you
published. So...all you have to do is send us the article
(you can find the email at this section). We will publish
your articles with a link to your website. Best articles may
be published in other forms such as the Affilicon's
conference handbook and will give you a great deal of
exposure! Are you up to the challenge? send us your articles
at
Affiliate Marketing Articles. |
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We Are In A Full Gear!
September 14, 2008 - 1:09am
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Just a quick update guys... we had our
first day with 13 new attendees registered to the Affilicon
conference. at that rate we will be selling all tickets way
before the event :) we are happy with the progress. We
expect 600+ attendees. |
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The Art of Online Marketing
September 4, 2008 - 5:01pm
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Affilicon was initially
introduced on Aug 1st. We have selected to start the
conference marketing by using free of charge online
marketing tools. We used, primarily, free of charge
emails to selected contacts (which we personally know or
know off). We have opened an "Affilicon group" at
Facebook and currently we have over 500 individuals
subscribed. Posting in various posts, setting up a site
for Affilicon and updating through blogs ( such as this
one) have resulted in over 100 paying participants and
over 50% of the exhibition space sold. Searching at
Google for Affilicon results now with over 2,000
mentions. So far so good and with minimal cost.
We are adding now some paid activities. We have just
lunched a PPC campaign at Google and we are going to
publish few press releases for the Israeli media.
Will report back with results as we accumulate them. |
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Affilicon- 83 days before the
conference
September 3, 2008 - 10:59am
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Preparation are in full gear.
Agenda was updated to cater for your requests. We might
make some more changes in the near future. We are busy
collecting articles for the conference booklet.
Individuals are interested in contributing are welcome.
We have passed the 100 participates mark. People are
taking advantage of the early bird program. You can
still register and get a discount.
We are already confident that the conference will be an
event to remember. |
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First Post -
Affilicon is Launched
August 17, 2008 - 8:27am
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Everyone reading this
probably spends most of their time like me, living in a
virtual world. All our interaction is on a monitor. It’s a
fascinating world bounded only by our imagination and
creativity. But the downside is that it can be lonely.
There is nothing like the human contact that comes from
conferences and other get-togethers. Spending a few hours
with people who, like us, wake every morning thinking about
the same issues is very special. There’s energy and synergy
created that cannot be achieved anywhere else.
It’s the reason that conferences, expos and market places
are one of the oldest of human activities. People love to
come together to see what’s new, to exchanges news (and
gossip), to listen and to learn. Just one good idea, one
good contact could reap rewards for years to come.
Affilicon now makes this possible for the first time in
Israel. Not having to travel abroad not only saves money but
also precious time. A minimal investment can return great
benefits.
Responses to the initial announcement about plans for
Affilicon have been excellent. “It’s about time someone
organized this” has been the general comment.
But it’s not enough to say “it’s a great idea”. You, the
affiliate entrepreneur are an essential part of the success
of this event. The vendors, media companies, affiliate
programs, operators and the experts come to meet you. Your
fellow entrepreneurs come to meet you. That’s what
networking and synergy is all about.
The organizers have put together an action packed program of
information and ideas to help you make more money from your
efforts.
We look forward to meeting you in November. |
