LINKSHARE SUMMIT 2008 Recap - The Voice of the Market
Our goal is make each LinkShare event bigger, better and more valuable than the last. This year, with more than 400 LinkShare advertisers, publishers and partners in attendance, our 5th Annual LinkShare Summit marked our largest January Summit and San Francisco turnout on record. This premiere event for leaders in performance-based marketing drew record participation from the most influential companies doing business on the web, including American Express, Macys.com, Chase, Advanta, Fleurop.com, and Walmart.com.

The theme for this year's event was The Voice of the Market. Distinguished industry speakers provided information and key insights to help attendees achieve their 2008 business goals and objectives.

LinkShare president, Stephen Denton, opened the conference by welcoming attendees and sharing what's in store for LinkShare in 2008, including redesigns of both the publisher and advertiser interfaces, enhanced reporting, faster payments, and an overall improved user experience.

Keynote speaker Ian Ayres, Professor at Yale School of Management and author of Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart, spoke about how today's innovative business leaders have become "Super Crunchers", processing incredible amounts of information to make better decisions faster than ever. By harnessing collective intelligence and crunching massive amounts of data, this new breed of decision maker is leading to new insights and more accurate analysis, such as predicting with accuracy what customers want before they make their purchase decision.

David Shatsky, President of JupiterResearch, continued LinkShare's TrendWatch series by unveiling the results of our online shopping study done in conjunction with JupiterResearch.

Seminars
The Advertiser and Publisher seminar tracks provided attendees with an opportunity to hear directly from LinkShare experts on topics to help plan and grow business initiatives in the months ahead. They also gave guests a chance to hear from some LinkShare clients on how they're leveraging LinkShare expertise and technology today to drive results.

  • New and Notable Advertiser Programs for 2008
    Moderator Melissa Feemster, Managing Director of Marketing Services for LinkShare, led this session which highlighted new LinkShare Advertiser programs, innovative linking tools and cutting-edge promotions available in the LinkShare Network this year. Guest speakers Herschel Thompson of Petite Sophisticate, Stephanie Swanson of BabyUniverse, and Liz Hamburg of ApplyWise previewed their newly available LinkShare affiliate programs. Cassandra Montoya of Beatport.com demonstrated how they use LinkShare Flex Links to deliver technology to publisher websites, and Steve Lee of Enterprise Rent-A-Car showed how to be "greener" in 2008.

  • Winning the Customer Acquisition Battle
    This session explored ways in which customer acquisition marketing differs from product marketing and looked at the key principles for creating successful customer acquisition campaigns. Russ Pechman, Director of Lead Advantage Network for LinkShare, led a panel which included John Engler of UnSubCentral, David Helmreich of TARGUSinfo, and Paul Moss of Insurance.com. Chad Jaquays, Director of Lead Advantage Network for LinkShare, discussed how LinkShare's Lead Advantage offerings can help advertisers broaden distribution, acquire customers and insure better quality leads.

  • Using LinkShare Web Services to Engage Your Customers
    This session, led by Mark Kirschner, Vice President of Marketing, and Kiran Thomas, Senior Product Development Analyst, for LinkShare, gave publishers a better understanding of LinkShare's Web Services and how visionary marketers are using these technologies today. Panelists Keiron McCammon of Kaboodle, Dina Pradel of StyleFeeder, and Tim Smith of Lemonade outlined how they implemented LinkShare Web Services to add greater value for their users.

  • New and Notable Publishers
    This lively session, led by Adam Weiss, Director of Network Development for LinkShare, spotlighted three innovative new LinkShare Publishers, each with a unique way of increasing distribution and generating incremental revenue for LinkShare Advertisers. Michael Birnholz of ToldYa demonstrated widgets for streaming video, interactive forms and more; Jim Morris of Buzzillions.com showed how their innovative navigation and user-generated reviews enhance the shopping experience; and Brian Fox of BuyPartner Exchange discussed how they connect online advertisers for exclusive cross promotional opportunities to boost conversions, recapture abandons, and increase frequency of purchase.

  • Developer Forum: Implementing LinkShare Web Services
    This "how to" session co-presented by Jonathan Levine, CTO of LinkShare, and Ash Parikh, Principal Product Marketing Manager of Informatica, provided an in-depth look at ways developers can build off LinkShare Web Services to obtain relevant content and add value to the end consumer's experience. Publishers walked away with sample code for using some of the newest LinkShare Web Services.

  • Online Video: Next Gen Merchandising to Today's Customer
    Peter Chun, Managing Director of Search Services for LinkShare, moderated this session which looked at how video is becoming a compelling new way to merchandise to today's online customer. Guest speaker Bradley Inman, CEO and Founder of TurnHere, demonstrated how this uniquely suited format for the Web is bringing marketers and advertisers more bang for their buck, creating a new level of call to action and click to buy options. Attendees took away insights on ways to leverage marketing initiatives through this application and how LinkShare Flex Links can be leveraged to start driving greater revenue today.

    • LinkShare PartnerMaker
    LinkShare PartnerMaker, an intimate and interactive networking forum held the evening prior to Summit, brought the power of LinkShare deal-making to life. Twenty-five publishers met one-on-one with twenty-five advertisers during a three hour reception to forge winning and profitable partnerships for the year ahead. To enhance the partnership-building potential of this session, all LinkShare Publisher PartnerMakers submitted key marketing materials and metrics to LinkShare prior to the event. Information was published in a special, limited edition PartnerMaker program to ensure participants had materials at their fingertips to get deals done during the event! This year's PartnerMakers included CauseLoyalty, FabulousSavings.com, DBG Loyalty, iGive.com, Kriyari, Move Marketing, Student Advantage, and Upromise. Click here to see the complete list of 2008 LinkShare PartnerMakers.

    LinkShare After Party
    LinkShare Summit 2008 ended with a celebration at Slide, the swanky and newly restored turn-of the-century San Francisco speakeasy. Friends and colleagues enjoyed dinner and dancing at this party co-sponsored by GSI Commerce.

    Acknowledgments and Feedback
    We would like to thank those who attended LinkShare Summit 2008 and our sponsors for their generous contributions. To help us continue to provide valuable industry events, please take a moment to share your comments and suggestions by completing our online feedback survey.

    Mark Your Calendars for LinkShare Symposium 2008!
    We look foward to having you join us for LinkShare Symposium 2008 in New York on June 23-24.