The one-day LinkShare Summit is over and I came away from the event with some new ideas, a ton of business cards, a renewed positive outlook about the state of interactive marketing and a very nasty head cold.

So, this report on the event will be short since its never pretty when me, blogging and over the counter cold remedies are combined. I’m grateful that the two podcasts I participate in each week have already happened – my voice sounds like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters.

Here’s quick recap of the LinkShare Summit:

*The keynote speaker, Ian Ayers, a professor at the Yale School of Management and author of the book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart, was fantastic.

I really enjoy it when I attend industry events and the speaker comes from outside the space. For me, it usually offers a broader perspective and gives me a lot of new ways of looking at issues. I’m still digesting and processing all the great information about randomized testing. There was a lot of food for thought during that hour.

Next up was JupiterResearch President David Schatsky, who presented some of the findings based on a study about online consumer’s behaviors commissioned by LinkShare. There was so much good data packed onto each slide that I couldn’t take notes fast enough to keep up with the PowerPoint. The LinkShare folks said that although they don’t plan on releasing all the research, they will issue a press release later today with the key finding.

Meanwhile, here are some points that I managed to scribble down:

*Nearly 75% of online users in the US are purchasing products/services online.

*On average, online buyers in the US purchased $556 of total merchandise online in the last year.

*88% of internet users use the internet to research online and offline purchases across a vast array of products and services.

*High value customers (those spending $800+ online each year), are particularly diligent in their online research of specific products and services (when bought either online or offline).

*87% of all online buyers visited multiple Websites before purchasing a product.

*Online buyers consider search engines the most useful tool online, next to retailer sites.

The role of social media is growing among young online shoppers:
*1% of online shoppers ages 18-24 are aided in their purchase decision process by social and community sites.

*78% of these younger shoppers think that adding elements of social/community features would improve the sites they use.

*44% of cell phone owners ages 18 to 24 can envision using their phone to shop, given improvements in form factor, download speeds, and other improvements.

The sessions I attended were also filled with good information as was my talk with LinkShare President Steve Denton. I’ll post more about that early next week.

A couple of other random thoughts before my throbbing head explodes:

Kellie Stevens has a report on some major loyalty and rebate affiliates that were named in a patent infringement suit.

I’m also thinking about attending a conference here in San Francisco on Monday called “Customer Service is the New Marketing.” I’m working on a piece about marketing and CRM and the lineup of speakers and attendees looks fantastic. By the way, during his LinkShare Summit keynote, Ayers got a huge laugh from the audience when he called CRM “the new corporate Zoloft.”