Chris Dessi - Vice President zanox, Inc

As we slide into the last days of September suffice to say: Fall is officially upon us.

What does that mean if you're an affiliate marketer? Well, I thought I'd list the top 3 things that every affiliate marketer should be thinking about right now. Christmas is closer than you think, and Halloween is upon us.. So yes - you should be thinking about certain key things other than the Fall Foliage of course).

1. Halloween Offers
2. Christmas Offers
3. Ad:Tech New York

Regarding #1
For some networks this may be too little too late. Halloween offers are already converting like crazy, and if you don't have the bandwidth to get these offers up and running by early next week, then you're already behind.

Regarding #2
Christmas offers can mean simply reaching out to your best advertises on your network and requesting some great Christmas landing pages, or Christmas creative. Even requesting some special Christmas coupons, discounts, or any kind of "freemium" type of offering will help you out this holiday season.

Regarding #3
I'll be speaking at the show this year, and if it's even remotely near the insanity of last year than we're all in for a massive treat. The New York Hilton becomes a complete madhouse - and truthfully - I love it.

Finally - no, I have no idea what I'm going to be this year for Halloween -

Got any suggestions?

So this morning I got into the office after a great long weekend to check my calendar. Holy Cow! I'll be out of the office 70% of the month bouncing around to come phenomenal places, and meeting with some of the best minds in the interactive industry. Next week I'll be in Cornado, California at the iMediaConnection Brand Summit. This is going to be phenomenal! They'll be more tahn 160 senior level marketing executives from major brand companies. Here is a brief sample:

The Advisory Board is composed of following industry thought leaders:

Jonathan Adams, VP, Director – Media, Digitas
Sean Cheyney, VP, Marketing & Business Development, AccuQuote
Jarvis Coffin, CEO, BURST! Media
Tom Hespos, President, Underscore Marketing
Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A I Razorfish
Scot McLernon, former SVP, Sales, CBS Digital Media
Dave Morgan, Chairman, TACODA
Mark Naples, Managing Partner, WIT Strategy
Correy Honza, Director of Internet Marketing, Quiznos Corporation
Sheryl Biesman, Manager of Online Marketing, Pharmavite
Bryan Stapp, CMO, Quicken Loans

I'll be at this show until Thursday of next week, and heading to Shop.org the week after in Las Vegas! Shop.org is the association for retailers online. I've attended this show in the past, and this is a top notch event that I recommend everyone attend.

I'll be sure to post a detailed review while at each event, and some post event thoughts

I just returned to New York from lovely Chicago for this years Ad:Tech show. Although the show is much smaller in scale than the San Francisco, or New York shows I always love any Ad:Tech event.

Some highlights: Chris Anderson's Keynote on the Longtail. I loved being able to hear Chris speak. He kicked off the whole event, and had a captive audience. Some of the newer things Chris spoke about had to do with a new case study he's reviewing for Zapppos.com the online shoe retailer. The results coming from his research is facinating, and I feel shaping the way we all do business online.

The Longtail certainly applies on our network as well. Sure, there are certainly verticals that may drive any online business, but it seems that some of the smaller trends with advertisers drive the majority of any networks' bottom line.