“The digital goods market is growing, and Avangate is here to help” – in my opinion, was the most important takeaway from the recent Affiliate Summit East show in New York City.
Avangate has been participating in affiliate events for over 5 years now, and we’ve spoken not just once, but many times on the topic of digital goods and how Avangate can help affiliates sell more. Now with the new services economy, it has changed the way companies interact with customers and, of course, this is visible in the affiliate channel as well. But now, more than ever, we saw an abundance of digital goods-related companies from the affiliate ecosystem: software and services merchants, many software monetization solutions, etc. Who knows how many of these companies will still be in this market 18 months from now, but agencies are catering to this vertical – naturally making them the affiliates that everyone wants to meet.
Speaking of the show itself, according to Shawn and Missy, it’s the biggest one on the East coast so far. We witnessed that firsthand in the Meet Market where, at times, it would like the Times Square crowd was being detoured through the conference area. Not only that, but the quality of the leads we received was higher and more relevant than ever before.
I held a presentation on affiliate retention techniques – in the new short format of 18 minutes – and the slides can be viewed here:
In my opinion, one of the best conference events was the Avangate Software Networking Dinner where more than 50 lead representatives across the software and services verticals gathered together for great networking, great food, and great fun.
All in all, it was a very good show, and we’re looking forward to the Vegas show in January – Affiliate Summit West 2015. If you’re into digital goods, contact me, as we’re preparing a new event concept that we want to roll out at ASW15.
