A friend of mine recently said she was disheartened by the promotion of the affiliate lifestyle as an easy way for anyone to make serious cash. She pointed out that most affiliates fall flat on their face making little to no money. This got me thinking…. is the affiliate dream real?

To answer this question, I decided to pick up the phone and fire up my email to reach out to a few successful affiliate marketers to get their thoughts on the reality of the affiliate dream.

Nick Reese

Nick Reese is the author of “How to Turn Traffic and Trust into Sales” and has been promoting affiliate offers since 2007. Nick is a powerful force in affiliate marketing and has made a ton of money promoting affiliate offers across a wide range of industries.

Amid metropolis shaking earthquakes and looming hurricanes, I survived Affiliate Summit East in New York not long ago. I staggered from NYC with tattered remains of notebook paper littered with choice bits I picked up to bring to you, the Pilgrim readers.

While the actual experience was more like an earthquake I didn’t feel and a hurricane I narrowly missed, I am glad to have survived ASE to bring you these highlights.

1. Coupon Poaching

A merchant’s pain and an affiliate’s worst nightmare is coupon poaching. Basically, a visitor lands on your checkout page staring at a coupon code field mocking them with the promise of additional discounts.

Whipping out Google faster than a New York hot dog vendor can ask for your order, these already converted visitors search for your brand name plus the word “coupon code”.

Editor’s Note: Occasionally we will give our readers a look at various events that one of our writers will be attending. We have no connection to this event other than this post to inform you about the opportunity that exists for futher online marketing education and networking.

Affiliate Summit East is just around the corner (August 21-23) in New York and there’s no time like the present to plan your conference strategy. Who better to give you tips on getting the most out of Affiliate Summit than co-founder and conference organizer, Shawn Collins?

Shawn agreed to answer a few of my questions about how to maximize your time at ASE so I could share them with you, our awesome Marketing Pilgrim readers. Enjoy

Recently, I attended the first ever Affiliate Summit Meetup Day. Affiliate Summit recently launched a nation wide circuit of meetups to bring affiliate marketers together in local networking and learning groups.

The meetups are currently held in Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Baltimore, Melbourne, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City and my home-town, Austin. The Austin meetup, featured a presentation by Shawn Collins (@affiliatetip) entitled “Affiliate Marketing for Newbies”. In the presentation Shawn laid out seven things you should focus on when building a new affiliate website.

Picking a Topic

Shawn recommended that you pick a topic you’re passionate about. He warned that picking “Flavor of the Day” topics for your site in response to Internet trends can lead to a faltering commitment on your part. Stick with things you’re passionate about and you’ll be more likely to dedicate the time and energy you’ll need to in order to be successful.