Kolimbo Takes On Traditional Affiliate Networks

KowaBunga! Technologies, the industry leader of private affiliate tracking and management solutions for online merchants announces a successful soft launch of the first “open” affiliate network, Kolimbo.

In only three months, Kolimbo has already generated over 35,000 new relationships and $2 million in new sales for KowaBunga!’s clients. Overall, Kolimbo is growing at a pace of 35% each month. Full public launch of Kolimbo is expected December 1, 2004.

Like traditional affiliate networks, Kolimbo pairs up merchants (“advertisers”) with affiliates (“publishers”), and then provides tracking and reporting to both parties for facilitating performance marketing deals, like cost per acquisition and cost per click. Access to Kolimbo is free to all KowaBunga! clients using their “My Affiliate Program” brand software.

Kolimbo’s “Open” Network vs. Traditional Affiliate Networks:

• Cost Savings for Merchants Means Higher Commissions for Affiliates – Kolimbo does not charge the 20%-30% transaction fee surcharge Merchants pay the traditional affiliate networks. (e.g. A merchant paying $100,000 to affiliates would pay a traditional network at least $20,000 [20% of $100,000] in surcharges.) Merchants can pass some of this infrastructure savings on to their affiliate partners, in exchange for increased promotions by their affiliate partners.
• Open Relationships Fosters Profitable Relationships – Kolimbo provides a centralized platform for facilitating direct, private relationships between Merchants and Affiliates, instead of limiting communication between the parties. Merchants and affiliates have complete control over every aspect of their relationships.

“Our unique market position as the provider of private affiliate program solutions, serving over 1,800 merchants and 500,000 affiliates world-wide, has given us the opportunity to offer this valuable new service,” said Todd Farmer, CEO of KowaBunga! “We care about the success of our merchant’s affiliate programs, and Kolimbo helps our merchants succeed.”

Industry insiders and analysts have praised the launch of Kolimbo. “KowaBunga! is to affiliate marketing as JetBlue is to the airline industry,” said Shawn Collins, proprietor of AffiliateManager.net, a leading industry discussion board. “They do a hundred little things to make managing an affiliate program efficient and painless. Now with Kolimbo, they have all of the upsides and none of the downsides of a traditional network.”

Kolimbo Offers Value to Merchants and Affiliates
Kolimbo merchant, Alan Earl from iDishNetwork.com, has already reaped the rewards of Kolimbo, “As a merchant, we need access to top quality affiliates but are simply unwilling to pay the extraordinary network fees that are associated with a solution like Linkshare or Commission Junction. Kolimbo allows us to ‘have our cake and eat it too.’ Our affiliate registrations have increased daily since the Kolimbo introduction and we’re confident that it will only get better.”

For affiliates, Kolimbo offers a convenient, free platform to find and manage their private relationships. Kolimbo affiliate, Wendy Shepherd of StudioMatrix.com says, “I have been working with hundreds of affiliate programs through many providers for about 7-years. Kolimbo is one of the most user-friendly networks on the internet today. I love the ease of finding merchants, stats and advertising creative in one area.”