Archives for September 2006

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) has announced the launch of their own affiliate linking infrastructure called Project Rover, according to blogger Scott Jangro.

The eBay affiliate program has been powered by Commission Junction since March 2001.

According to an e-mail from eBay published on Jangro’s blog, “Project Rover has been designed to work seamlessly with the Commission Junction interface, increase the effectiveness of our affiliate’s marketing campaigns, and will be rolled out to all countries.”

eBay touts the following benefits of the new linking structure:

• Reduced Ad / Cookie Blocking: Rover decreases the potential for Ad / Cookie Blocking by utilizing an eBay hosted domain.
• Limited Redirects: Rover will use fewer redirects reducing the risk of user drop off and improving speed and performance.
• Global Infrastructure Improvements: Rover will enable eBay and Commission Junction to develop increased global tracking capabilities, allowing for more seamless international affiliate promotions.

There is lots of speculation over the impetus of this move by eBay from Commission Junction.

My guess is that eBay wants a more enhanced, robust system for their affiliate program, while still tapping into the CJ affiliate base.

Since Project Rover is necessitating the eBay affiliates to change out their existing Commission Junction affiliate links for links at the http://rover.ebay.com domain, could a full secession from CJ be in the works?

ValueClick, Inc.’s (Nasdaq:VCLK) Commission Junction has announced the release of its Web Services for advertisers and publishers.

Commission Junction’s Web Services solution will enable their clients and third parties to develop their own applications to create unique products or consumer experiences in the CJ Marketplace.

Merchants working with Commission Junction can now offer affiliates enhanced access to their product catalog data feeds, enabling affiliates to present the most up-to-date product information to their visitors in the most desirable manner.

Also, CJ merchants benefit from the ability to customize affiliate program sign-up and login areas, allowing Commission Junction powered affiliate programs to finally provide a branded experience for affiliates.

Affiliate functionality for Commission Junction’s Web Services includes direct access to merchant’s Product Catalog data in real-time and the ability to perform searches based on keyword, UPC, manufacturer, model number, advertiser, SKU and more.

As part of the Web Services launch, Commission Junction has also created a community Web site for its clients. The CJ Web Services site will contain announcements, articles, sample applications and access to new Web Services and resources.

In addition, the site’s forum will allow users to discuss, exchange and share their own applications and best practices.

More details at http://webservices.cj.com/

The quality of leads generated by affiliates is a big issue for companies running CPA affiliate programs. While co-reg can bring in massive volumes of data, the tools to qualify that data have been somewhat limited.

TARGUSinfo has announced a new lead verification solution for co-registration called On-Demand Lead Verification. This service is designed to instantly, easily and cost-effectively verify large quantities of leads.

The TARGUSinfo solution can verify that a lead’s name, address and phone number are correct and match each other. This level of data matching takes things to a new level from validation services that perform data checks on independent variables.

On-Demand Lead Verification can also add missing contact information and enhance the data with demographics and lifestyle indicators.

The enhanced leads will enable online lead generators to serve real-time offers and also help decrease form abandonment.

Pretty exciting news to anybody with an affiliate program based on leads.

Visit TARGUSinfo.com for more information about TARGUSinfo.

In late 2003 it seemed a perfect storm had swelled against the use of e-mail in affiliate marketing. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, made legitimate e-mail affiliates wary of clicking the “send” button.

In addition to challenges like getting white listed by ISPs and beating Spam filters to reach their double opt-in subscribers, affiliates utilizing e-mail now had to lose sleep over whether they might run afoul of the FTC’s ambiguous e-mail regulations.

At the same time, industry pundits lined up to anoint RSS the heir apparent to e-mail. RSS, an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, enables people to subscribe to receive communications to an “RSS feed reader”. It sounded good on paper and pixels – subscribers get only what they want with RSS.

Could this be the end of e-mail as an affiliate marketing tool?

Continued at http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-mail-marketing/38225.html

I was just reading the latest Associate Programs Newsletter by Allan Gardyne and got a kick out of a section called, “Seven ways to be your own BS detector.”

The piece in Allan’s newsletter was about a comment he’d gotten from a skeptical reader who didn’t believe Allan was a legitimate, successful affiliate marketer:

“You are full of bull, a bullshitter, a dying of hunger guy trying to make a buck lying to people. Bet you live in some crappy apartment here in the US and never been to any resort in your life. All you live is to send these crappy emails pushing lies, endorsing other con artists, and to push this advertising crap to suckers. A person that really makes money doesn’t go around giving seminars for others to do the same. The only one who makes money are them. You endorse that crap. Erase my email from your mailing list.”

In response, Allan goes on to outline a bunch of useful tools for anybody that wants to research a guru before buying their products or listening to their advice.

Helpful stuff from Allan, but I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’ve known him since 1999 and he’s most assuredly the real deal. A talented and successful affiliate who’s always been willing to share his knowledge.

I would count Allan among my affiliate marketing mentors, along with Declan Dunn and James Marciano (founder of Refer-it.com).

Back in 2000, as I was putting the finishing touches on my book, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants, I asked Allan if he’d provide me a quote for the book cover. Gracious as ever, he did just that, and his testimonial undoubtedly helped my book sales.

Thanks Allan for all you’ve done to build up affiliate marketing and help countless people across the years.

Check out Allan’s newsletter archive – lots of great information dating back to 1998.