Last week I was the keynote speaker at Affili@Syd, an affiliate marketing conference in Sydney Australia. The event is run by the guys at Viv9 and was attended by over 150 affiliates, merchants, marketers, agencies and bloggers. I can’t say enough about how great everyone was at the event, not only the Viva9 team who put everything together, but also all of the attendees who were very passionate and grateful for the event. It was my first time in Australia and I really enjoyed meeting everyone at the conference and seeing how the other side of the world does business online.

During my keynote I gave a brief overview on how I got started with affiliate marketing, from creating my own sites and driving traffic to Amazon.com to earn 5-15% on sales, how I created my million dollar web site within just a few months, to my latest activities in the blogger space with ZacJohnson.com and the release of my Six Figure Affiliate Blogging guide.

Zac Johnson Keynote at Affili@Syd June 2010

The goal behind my keynote was to inspire, motivate and bring new ideas to the marketers of Australia. For anyone who hasn’t experienced the internet marketing world outside of the US, you will find that we experience most of the latest trends first. Rebills, flogs, PPV and social network advertising hasn’t caught on in Australia like it has in the US. Most marketers in Australia are still focusing on search marketing, and when I mentioned that most affiliate networks are paying out weekly, everyone was in shock.

After my keynote, a speaker from Facebook (Australia) was up. The presentation had a corporate feel… but that’s what you would expect from a Facebook speaker and talking only about their site. It was mainly discussing the growth of Facebook overall, and the massive growth of Facebook in Australia. Several case studies were shown on how companies are using Facebook to grow awareness of their brands and bring in new customer leads and data. Once questions rose about Facebook Ads and why ads were being denied, the answer given was “I’d like you to talk with someone on our Facebook Ads team.“, which is the usual response when talking to someone at Facebook.

By the way… what’s the largest video site on the internet? If you said YouTube, you are wrong. Facebook now has more video than YouTube, and that’s mainly due to how easy it for users to add video from their profile page. Facebook just hasn’t made all of their video directories available to the public for viewing like YouTube has.

Affili@Syd Founders: Chris and Matt

Affili@Syd Conference Recap

The Affili@Syd conference was only a day long, and this was their second year for the event, but I definitely can see a demand for these types of conferences and if they stick with it, their attendance should continue to grow every year. If you ever need an excuse to hit Australia or want to make a business expense out of it, be sure to check out Affili@Syd.

Once my keynote is released on web video, I will be sure to make an updated post. After hitting Australia, I then head over to New Zealand for a few days. Check back as I will soon write about my journey on the other side of the world. I look forward to possibly seeing you at the next Affili@Syd!