Denton Resigns from Linkshare
Big news out of Linkshare today.
LinkShare Announces Executive Management Team Changes: “NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire/ — LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action
marketing network, announced the resignation of Stephen R. Denton as
President of the company and two promotions in its executive management
team.”While a search for Denton’s replacement gets underway, his duties will
be assumed by John J-H Kim, who will become Interim President in addition
to his role as CEO of LinkShare’s parent company, Rakuten USA.
(As a side note, it’s always heartening to find this sort of thing on press release outlets instead of from a phone call… don’t you hire out very expensive PR firms? Thanks, networks).
AffStat 2008 Report Available
Shawn Collins has made the annual AffStat Report available for purchase and download. For anyone interested in the nitty gritty metrics of affiliate marketing, this is a must read.
Understanding Web Monetization is Essential to Tech Blogging
Listening to the most recent Gillmor Gang today brought about more head-scratching for me as to why or what is so hard to understand about the basic understanding of what affiliate marketing is and what affiliate marketing is not.
Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand that it will (probably) not help my bottom line or profit margin by any degree if the participants of the Gillmor Gang and the associated San Francisco Bay-centric clique understand what affiliate marketers do and that they are not SEO’ers, spammers, arbitragers, MLM’ers or general web-pollutionists.
I’m referring to Jason Calacanis doing a series of well (or ill depending on your sense of humor and sense of segue way cadence) placed ads for the Affiliate Summit during tapings of the Gillmor Gang podcast. I’ve covered the first episode of The Gang where Jason caused a few ripples by doing the Affiliate Summit ads over on ReveNews.
On this past Friday’s taping, it was TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington who asked the now inevitable “Are they SEO’ers?” question when Jason did his now tongue-in-cheek ad followed with an odd “they must be all black-hatters.” Jason answered that affiliate marketing is a billion dollar industry that no one knows about and isn’t SEO or MLM. Good to hear that Jason has been doing his homework and I do look forward to hearing his thoughts on the industry since he is the Affiliate Summit keynote.
So, my question is whether or not I should keep feeling a sense of frustration or exasperation that such web influentials know so little about affiliate marketing or seemingly care so little to learn about affiliate marketing before slapping it with an unfair brand of spam/blackhat/arbitrage/junk.
You’d think (or at least I do) that bloggers who blog about technology and web2.0 monetization such as Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick would also investigate the business model of DoubleClick’s important Performics division. Or perhaps these bloggers would seemingly be interested as to why the Japanese mega-corp Rakutan spent hundreds of millions on Linkshare or why ValueClick and its Commission Junction property are considered next in line for a major acquisition after DoubleClick, Razorfish and Right Media (if you listen to the rumors and sites such as SeekingAlpha). In all of these examples, affiliate marketing plays a major role.
Perhaps I’m just being protective and defensive over an industry that I’ve seen dramatically mature and “grow-up” over the last few years and one in which I’m proud to be a member. Nevertheless, in order to adequately understand the web landscape and the future shape of web apps, bloggers and thinkers must take into account the various forms of monetization that exist on the web without dismissing them as black-hat. Or at least that’s my hope.
LinkConnector Making Gains: Is There a “Big 4″ Anymore?
With last week’s launch of the pepperjamNETWORK and the discussion that ensued about the role of affiliate networks in the online marketing space, it’s interesting to take note of some of the other networks out there that exist (in size but not necessarily quality) between the CJ/Linkshare/Performics/ShareASale affiliate network model and the more direct response driven CPA networks.
One of those networks is North Carolina based LinkConnector. LinkConnector has been active in the industry since 2004, but it looks as if they are picking up steam and advertisers according to a new press release.
LinkConnector kicked off 2008 with nine merchants from the Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide, tripling its market share reach, and closing the gap between itself and other large networks, such as Commission Junction. LinkConnector has redefined for many merchants and affiliates what it is they want from an affiliate marketing network. Many merchants from the Top 500 Guide selected LinkConnector for its exclusive technologies, not found in other networks, and for its notable list of high quality affiliates.
“Many top Internet retailers took notice of LinkConnector in 2007, seeking new and better solutions in affiliate marketing,” said Choots Humphries, LinkConnector Co-President. “Internet Retailer’s independent survey affirms that we are rapidly capturing market share. We believe this is due in part to our exclusive technologies and unique approaches, differentiating us from the crowd. We expect to again grow by more than 100 percent in 2008, providing affiliate marketing solutions to a growing number of merchants from the Top 500 List.”
So, the important question here is how networks such as LinkConnector, or the new pepperjamNETWORK or even the increasingly important CPA networks like AzoogleAds (not to mention agencies like MediaWhiz or the budding widget ad networks) will impact both the affiliate market and the more mentioned “Big 4″ networks?
Is there even a “Big 4″ anymore?
2008 should be fun as we find out.
