There had been some workshops and guest speakers at last weeks UK affiliate event in Newcastle.
SEO expert Martin Murray spoke for about an hour. To me it was all too basic information but still not boring as he appeared to be a good speaker.
Neil Halpin from Yahoo contributed the most interesting but yet most controversial information on that afternoon. He introduced ‘Search Submit Pro’, a way of influencing your organic rankings - with money involved. Quite a sensitive subject which resulted in many questions of the audience.
Anyway, in case you’re interested in any of these presentations you can download them from a4uevents.com now.

This time I can’t provide any pictures from the event. During my one week trip I took the camera out only once. For this lovely English breakfast (the days after I ordered ‘Continental breakfast’):

I just signed up for the upcoming a4u event in Newcastle. I’m really excited about it as this is probably biggest event of this kind. This time it’s taking place on board the DFDS Seaways m.s Queen Of Scandinavia. There will be workshops, free entertainment and - of course - networking. In the evening the ferry is going to leave Newcastle for Amsterdam. I’m planning on going to the UK a few days before the event and stay another few days in Amsterdam afterwards.
The only thing that troubles me a bit is the quite small number of delegates (72 so far). Of course the whole event will be cancelled if there are not enough attendees. I hope for the best and look forward to it.

On Friday there was another A4U get2gether held in London. It started at around 10 a.m. when we all gathered on the ‚Dixie Queen’. I think around 450 people attended the 6 hour trip. It was a nice opportunity to catch up with people who I only knew from email or phone contact and of course to get to know more people in this business as well as just to spread our name (unlike in Germany most people don’t seem to have heard of Spreadshirt before).

The event was perfectly organized and among those 450 people there were even around 120 affiliates. Seemed like everyone was looking out for red badges (affiliates) whereas yellow badges (agencies) seemed least exciting – at least to me.

However the whole thing was a little disappointing though. It helped making me finally realise that the UK market indeed is quite different from the German one. I did not see one single SEO (= no content websites) but the vast majority of professional affiliates promote advertisers either on ppc basis (usually little companies with 5-50 people) or they just focus on casino / gaming / betting / bingo websites which appears to be a huge business in the UK.

Now we’ve got to adjust our plans and strategies to the situation. Other people I spoke to made exactly the same experience. The great thing is I’ve learned a lot.

After getting off the boat maybe 200 people headed to ‚The Tower’ which is a hotel including a nice bar right next to the Tower Bridge. An Indian restaurant is where this day ended with a few guys from Commission Junction as well as some other guests.

For pictures please see below.

I am on my way back to Leipzig now. Early at the airport – just in case. Would like to use the Internet to get some work done however 6 GBP an hour seems a little exaggerated. So I just prepare this little update on the situation.

Now that I know there are a few people reading this I intent to find the time for keeping this blog up tp date more frequently.

On Wednesday as well as Thursday I visited the ad-tech in London Kensington. It has been quite a nice show however no way to be compared to last week’s OMD in Germany.

A lot of small exhibitors in even smaller boothes tried to get themselves a name in the business (loads of search engines). Also most of the affiliate networks (only the affiliates seemed to be missing) were present. From the biggest networks I suppose only Buy.at and PaidOnResults didn’t have a stand.

Only twenty minutes after I arrived on the first day already three networks came to us to introduce themselves. Have things changed?

In summary it’s been quite interesting with many leads regarding shop partnerships and I think I was able to improve our relationship with the networks we are working with.

For pictures please visit my/our affiliate blog.

This week I was able to secure myself a ticket for the a4u London get2gether as well as the ad-tech. Nice one that both events take place within the same week. That allows me to go to London on Wednesday, 27th of September. I’ve never been to the ad-tech before and therefore I’m curious to see what’s in there for us. Kolja is coming as well. However he won’t stay for the a4u g2g which will be hold on Friday on board of the Dixie Queen. Hope to meet a lot of interesting people there. Actually I’m sure I will.

In case you’re also coming please just let me know.

Offtopic: I’m heading to Norway today for a decent 10 day vacation of everything.