The digital marketing experts featured for 2003 are Shawn Collins, Missy Ward and Danny Sullivan.
What changed in digital marketing in 2003
MySpace launched in August 2003, and LinkedIn opened to the public that May, two new networks marketers are just starting to notice. That same year, affiliate marketing got its own dedicated industry event when Affiliate Summit held its first conference that November.
3 Professionals
Worth Knowing This Year
- 01
Shawn Collins
Co-founder, Affiliate Summit
Co-founded Affiliate Summit with a $400 investment, turning affiliate marketing from a scattered online trade into an organized industry with its own conference.
The first event, held that November in New York, gave affiliates and merchants a place to network in person for the first time. It was a modest start, but the kind of gathering the field hasn't had before.
- 02
Missy Ward
Co-founder, Affiliate Summit
Co-founded Affiliate Summit alongside Collins, bringing her own marketing and PR background to building the industry's first dedicated conference.
Her involvement is helping Affiliate Summit build the kind of community affiliate marketing hasn't had before.
- 03
Danny Sullivan
Founding Board Member, SEMPO
Was a founding board member when SEMPO officially opened to members in August 2003, formalizing search marketing as an industry.
His dual role as journalist and trade-body founder gave SEMPO credibility with an industry that already trusted his reporting through Search Engine Watch.
Also featured in 2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2020 and 2026
This page is an independent editorial mention published by Digital Business Marketing. The numbering above is a browsing order, not a formal award, contest, vote, or ranking, and inclusion does not imply any named person endorses Digital Business Marketing.
