Over the last couple of days I’ve been in Singapore attending the ad:tech Singapore conference. Ad:tech is a conference covering branding, sales, conversions and many other aspects that marketers and business executives face when operating their businesses online.

This is the first internet marketing conference I’ve attended, and what can I say? WOW is probably the right word to use. I was blown away with the keynotes I saw and the networking opportunities I was presented with.

To be able to talk internet marketing non stop for 2 days in it’s self was great, but the true value come from the relationships I built and the extensive knowledge I learned on marketing, mobile and branding in the Asian market.

I know many people in Asia that work online and were not able to attend…. which I feel is a real shame. There’s no doubt about it that if you work online and are involved with the Asian web market in anyway, ad:tech Singapore will definitely have a positive impact on your business.

I’m going to make an effort to attend the Ad:tech Tokyo conference in October – so if anyone is up for joining me, please let me know! Failing that, I hope to meet more interesting people at the next ad:tech Singapore!

The entrance to the Suntec International Exhibition and Convention Centre in Singapore – where the conference was held.

Thanks to the amazing team at ad:tech, I was able to get a press pass! Shame they missed the “my” from my domain ;) Although saying that, it was a great reason for people to start a conversation with me wanting to now how I was involved with Egg Noodles. One lady took a look at my name tag, looked up at me and said “cute”… then walked off lol

I was invited to the press briefing – Francesco Lagutaine, the Chief Marketing Officer of Citi Group Asia Pacific (3rd from left) talked about where he felt the web and mobile space was going in Asia. Also on stage were Paul Beckley – the Vice President of DMG World Media (who operate Ad:tech), Ken Mandel – Regional VP of advertising sales Yahoo and Ruth Stubbs – President of Media brands Asia Pacific. All together, a stellar line up for the press briefing!

Yahoo easily had the biggest presence at the show… not surprising considering how big Yahoo is in multiple Asian markets.

I’ve been to many conferences before were the food has always been a let down, however the food at adtech was excellent! Seabass with white white sauce, beef rogan josh, Burmese chicken curry… to name a few :)

Nicole Mies from Lufthansa gave a great talk on the strategy behind creating a social community site to gain exposure to the Chinese overseas student market. A really well executed presentation that highlighted the importance of looking at additional routes to market your products and services.

Google demoing their most recent app, an app scans data from business cards and imports the info into your contact lists. A really cool app!

They also demonstrated Google Mobile Ads – which considering there are 37 phones sold every second, compared to 4 babies being born every second, is an area more of us should be taking note off.

With wine and beers flowing down every ones necks, the networking got even better as people started to chill out more at the after party. I met some incredible people during these few hours, including folks from Dell, a Thailand based ad network and the president of Win Rar file compression software.

We all then went onto the Yahoo! sponsored after party… which was great! Shame I got a little drunk due to the self service cocktails… although I left early to save myself from any embarrassing moments :)

Here are some interesting nuggets on info I learned at the Ad Tech Singapore conference:

1. Indonesia has the largest online audience in South East Asia (30 million plus)

2. Blogging is huge in Malaysia, where more people trust bloggers over traditional press.

3. In Singapore, Social Media is huge, with a wide range of user demographics.

4. Travel is the main e-commerce component in South East Asia.

5. In Vietnam, the internal net pipes are fast, however external are slow. So consider hosting in Vietnam if aiming to the Vietnamese market.

6. Vietnam has the highest click-through-rate in the world, due to impatience… Generally users refresh the page when it doesn’t load. Something you should be aware of if buying ad space on a CPM model.

7. 4 babies are born every second, while 37 mobiles are sold every second.

8. When Dell added ratings and reviews next to their products, sales increased by 20%

9. For every dollar spent, Dell requires 8-9 ROI if they are to invest huge financial resources into campaigns.

10. The importance of using ad networks to fulfill ad inventory was really interesting.

11. The importance of keeping communications personal. i.e Always start communications using the name (if you have this data), along with sending them a happy birthday email. Few brands do this, although easy to implement.

12. Cost of customer acquisition is 8 times the cost of customer retention.

13. Location based services, and 3G in Japan started in 2001 – Just proves how far ahead the Japanese mobile market is.

14. Japanese mobile penetration is at 92.4% households, 88.5% population (that’s near 100% if you take small kids into consideration)

15. Does your web site offers users to Share, Learn, Engage, Play and Connect?

Thank you ad:tech for putting on an awesome conference!