Unfortunately, I had to come home yesterday night, so I won’t be attending the rest of SES NY. Why, you might ask?

I’M GETTING MARRIED! Tomorrow! In Vegas! Yikes!?

I’ve been with my fiancee for a LOOOOOONG time, so I figured it was time to make it official. Or as my buddy said, “So I guess you don’t like sex, eh?”

I’ll be back Sunday, with lots of pics! Later!

Day 2 started off with the opening keynote by Nick Carr. As keynotes go, it wasn’t too bad.. I’m looking forward to reading “The Big Switch” in it’s entirety.

The Expo Hall opened up at 10am, and it was absolute chaos. I’m not sure why they waited until Day 2 to open up the hall, but I had lots of down time yesterday when I could have been walking the hall. Just like with AdTech NY last fall, they had to split up the exhibitors over 3 floors. Again, I don’t understand why these conference organizers don’t find a bigger venue to hold it in. It’s a mess trying to get around. Thankfully, later in the day there were less people wandering the Expo Hall, and it was a bit more managable.

(I found it odd that GetUpdated was one of the key sponsors of the show, yet their booth was tucked away far in a corner on the highest floor.. Maybe it’s just me)

Converting Visitors Into Buyers was my first session of the day. I was eager to attend this one, because the session notes said, “The latter part of the session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their websites live to provide general feedback about changing them to improve visitor conversion.” Unfortunately, the 4 speakers used up all of the time in the session, and this part never happened. Still, it was a very informative session, and I’ll surely use some of that newfound knowledge to further optimize my ecommerce site in the future.

Another Networking Lunch, and this time the food was a bit different. I opted for something “safe” (or so I thought), and took the smoked turkey. Little did I know that it would be in a pita with tofu on top. To snack on, organic vegetable chips. WTF?! Again, made a few good contacts, and came up with some new ideas to implement out of some conversations at the table.

After lunch was another Orion Panel, on Universal Search. I spent too much time wandering around the Expo Hall, and showed up about 20 minutes late. There were people sitting on the floor, it was that packed. It sounded like a good session, but I wasn’t going to stand for an hour or more, so I left and caught up on some e-mail instead.

3:15pm brought about the sponsored sessions. I was really conflicted here, as I wanted to go to the Hitwise session, but also wanted to go to the Microsoft session on Live Search. I ultimately made the wrong decision, and went to the Live Search session. My ecommerce site used to have page 1 listings on MSN for many of our major keywords. But when Live went live in October 2007, our rankings disappeared overnight! I asked one of the panelists (a Microsoft employee) about this, and she indicated that it would be addressed during the session. Instead, the session focused 90% of it’s attention on adCenter. The Live Search speaker had only been with MS for 1 MONTH, and couldn’t really answer any questions on Live. Her answer was to talk to the people in the booth (who weren’t much help either). I was pissed. And to add insult to injury, people that went to the Google session got free t-shirts!

Last up for the day was Landing Page Testing & Tuning, presented by Tim Ash. A great session, though it almost felt like a big infomercial for his company’s services.. I would have liked to walk out with some definitive suggestions, but instead it was more of an overview to make you look at your site and landing pages in a different light. I’m going to have to pick up his book, as I’m sure that will go further in depth.

Unlike all the live blogger geeks out there (and there were a lot!), I decided to focus on the workshops at hand, and worry about posting later. I watched countless people miss the entire session, as they fought to get connected to the flakey wifi network.. Such is life.

I was very interested in attending the Organic Listings Forum, so I made a point to get up early and catch the train into the city. Unfortunately, this “open forum” was VERY basic in nature, and the questions being asked by the audience weren’t thought-provoking in the least. I had high hopes for this session, as I’m a big fan of Jill Whalen, but she didn’t actually speak all that much. I left this session disappointed, and wished that I had gone to the “Redefining the Customer” session instead.

Next up was Analytics: Data Into Action. I picked this session because none of the rest appealed to me. I’m actually glad that I decided to attend. Matthew Bailey was a fantastic speaker, who interjected some fun into his presentation, while still getting his point across. The main theme of the session was to use segmentation when analyzing your visitor data. All-in-all, not a bad workshop..

Then it was lunchtime, and SES had a “Networking Lunch” planned for us. I actually made a few good contacts here, and the food wasn’t bad either. They needed to turn down the A/C, but other than that, no complaints.

2:00pm brought the next set of workshops, and I opted for the Web Analytics: Measuring Success session. Again, I wasn’t wowed by the other options, so that’s how I ended up here. Avinash Kaushik from Google was first up, and he really showed off the power of Google Analytics. He also stressed the need for multi-variable testing, which is made easy using Google’s Website Optimizer. A great speaker, and I’m going to be following him closely from now on.. The rest of the speakers weren’t bad either, touching on many of the same points..

Up next was the Orion Panel - Getting Vertical Search Right. An interesting panel, but not really relevant to my personal needs. I stuck around for almost an hour, before ducking out. I had intended to stay for the SEMPO mixer (never one to turn down an open bar!), but I was wiped out and just wanted to check into my hotel room and get some rest.

As I mentioned previously, I’m a HUGE fan of the American Express Starwood Rewards Card. Not wanting to drop $300+ for a hotel in the city, I logged into my SPG account and looked to see if there were any Starwood Hotels in the area. Low and behold, the Sheraton New York was only 1 block from the Hilton (and was actually a recommended hotel in the SES NY literature!). I booked a room for 12,000 points. For most rewards cards, that would equal $120. You can’t even stay in a hostel for $120 in NYC! The room was great, and as an added bonus, the SPG manager left me a complimentary bottle of wine, and a box of candies. Sweet!

Till tomorrow..

I finally got a free moment to jump on the computer, so I figured I’d throw up a quick post! Of course, a quick scan of Google Blog Search showed me that every other blogger in the universe has already written about ASW.. That’s what I get for spending 12 hours at the craps table! But I walked away up almost $22K, so I’m not complaining!

The parties are RIDICULOUS! And the conference itself isn’t so bad either.. It’s pretty cool meeting people like Zac Johnson, John Chow, and others in person, after reading their blogs forever. Lastly, a huge shout-out to Shawn and Misty for putting together such a great event! Can’t wait for Affiliate Summit East in Boston this summer..

I’m off to dinner at Nine @ The Palms.. Till tomorrow!

Business cards are a must for anyone in business.. Yet all too often, I meet people who don’t have business cards, or they printed out their own cards. First impressions are very important, so don’t blow it on something so basic! I know money’s tight when you’re first starting out, but VistaPrint has a solution that can fit even the smallest budget:

250 FREE full-color business cards (just pay shipping)

VistaPrint allows you to design, proof and order you business cards online. The free cards offer has 42 background designs to choose from. If you don’t like any of them, you can pay $14.99 to get access to hundreds of other designs. It costs nothing to try it out, so check out the site and see if you find a business card that meets your needs! Down the line when money isn’t so tight, you can get some fancier cards - I have some REALLY sick business cards that were custom designed, but they cost $200 for 2000 cards!

The VistaPrint offer is great if you’re looking for some free business cards to promote your site or blog. If you don’t need business cards, VisitaPrint also offers a free rubber stamp, personalized notepad, or 100 postcards.

“ad:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference dedicated to connecting all sides of today’s brand marketing landscape. Worldwide shows blend keynote speakers, topic driven panels and interactive workshops to provide attendees with the tools and techniques they need to compete in a changing world.”

I’ve heard great things about last year’s ad:tech, so I decided to check it out. Being so close to NYC, and scoring a free pass from one of my affiliate managers, it was a no-brainer. I was initially going to just drive to the show, but then I started thinking about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I didn’t want some crazy parking attendants joyriding my Porsche through New York City. So instead I took the train into the city..

ad:tech now spans 4 days, but with my hectic schedule, I was only able to go up for one day. Most people will need at least two days to visit with all of the exhibitors, as this is truly a monstrous event! I know the planners chose the Hilton because of it’s location and everything, but in my opinion, it was a bad call. Everyone was packed in like sardines (it was sometimes challenging just to walk through some of the jam-packed hallways), and the layout of the show was absolutely confusing, with 4 or 5 seperate exhibitor areas spanning multiple floors. They could have avoided this if they had held it at a different venue that could accomodate such a large group (like the Jacob Javits Convention Center).

That said, I thought it was a great event overall. I wish I could have stayed for the Money Makers Party at Pasha, but an emergency back home caused me to cut my trip prematurely short. This was my first industry event, but it definitely won’t be my last - I’m already signed up for Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, and I can only imagine what the parties out there will be like!