Commission Junction loses its biggest advertiser [merged]

[praveen]

eBay has announced the eBay Partner Network, which will officially launch on April 1st. The program brings the online marketplace’s affiliate program – which rewards Web publishers for driving new users and bids to eBay – in-house. Previously, it was handled by Commission Junction, the cost-per-action arm of ValueClick.

With more than 100,000 affiliates, eBay’s affiliate program has certainly become one of the largest on the Web, on par with that offered by other e-commerce giants like Amazon. However, in running it through a middle-man like Commission Junction, eBay loses a few points on every transaction that affiliates drive – which, certainly adds up in the long-run.

http://mashable.com/2008/03/17/ebay-partner-network/

[masm50]

I always wondered why such an online giant kept using a middleman for their affiliate program. I just gathered the terms with CJ must have been very favourable.

This makes sense though as they ry to improve profit margins.

-Tim

[Czar]

eBay officially announced on Monday that it is terminating its two massive CJ affiliate programs; for its auction site and retailer Half.com.

The eBay program has been a star performer at CJ for years, but eBay's management have decided to manage their affiliate relationships internally in the future, so the program has been absorbed into eBay itself.

ValueClick, which owns Commission Junction, took a 7% hit on the stock market when this news was released.

Do any of you promote eBay through CJ? If so, are you likely to switch across to the new program or will this move by eBay cause you to stop promoting them, in favour of other merchants that remain within the CJ marketplace?

[Jan]

I might start using ebay now that we don't have to go through cj

[Nintendo]

I sure hope this increases commission! eBays the only program I promote using CJ.

We are excited to announce eBay's new global affiliate platform: the eBay Partner Network.

The new platform will go live on April 1st, 2008 PST, at which point eBay will no longer be running its affiliate program through Commission Junction. Beginning April 1st, affiliates should register with eBay Partner Network and migrate their links from CJ to the new platform.

While CJ and ValueClick have been valuable partners to eBay throughout the years, we've decided to give our affiliate community a customized experience for eBay affiliates.

All the great tools and benefits of working with the eBay program will remain the same, access to the Editor Kit and affiliate API, the flexible destination tool, the great payout structure. In addition, the eBay partner network will provide several new features:
Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneously
New, targeted banners and rich media creatives
New landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilities
More detailed reporting capabilities for eBay's programs

The eBay Partner Network and Commission Junction will run in parallel for one month through this process, so please plan to complete your migration by May 1st, 2008.

You can receive an additional 5% bonus for all traffic tracked through eBay Partner Network in April 2008 (bonus applicable to traffic sent to Half.com and US, UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, India and Spain eBay sites). The sooner you migrate, the more you'll earn! Just:
Register with eBay Partner Network on April 1, 2008
Confirm your registration, and obtain your new identifiers
Update your links with your new identifiers.
Reminder: Please plan to complete migration by May 1, 2008.

You will receive more information and step by step directions for the transition on April 1st. A special help desk to answer your questions about migration will also be available starting April 1st. You can find more details, including a list of programs that will be affected, at http://affiliates.ebay.com.

Thanks for being a valued partner. We're excited for a successful transition, and the opportunity to grow your business through even more innovations, information and communication moving forward!

http://affiliates.ebay.com/

I think eBay affiliate URLs that start with http-//rover.ebay.com won't have to be changed. I sure hope they don't.

[Czar]

The new eBay Partner Network is now live, and offering a 5% revenue bonus incentive for the month in an attempt to encourage former CJ affiliates to switch their links as quickly as possible.

It will be interesting to see whether or not these efforts work, or whether their affiliate base will fall away rapidly as a result of legacy affiliate links being left in place an untouched on many sites for years.

Here's an extract of the email that was sent to their former CJ affiliate base today:

During April 2008, you can receive an additional 5% bonus for all traffic tracked through eBay Partner Network in April 2008 (bonus applicable to traffic sent to Half.com and US, UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, India and Spain eBay sites). The sooner you migrate, the more you’ll earn! Just:
• Register at https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com and confirm your registration via an e-mail you will receive
• Obtain your new links in the “tools” tab, then update your eBay links on your websites with the new code. See our migration guide for more details: http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.co...gration-guide/

[Jan]

Originally Posted by Nintendo

http://affiliates.ebay.com/

All their TOS hurt my head I don't understand half of what they mention in them.

[nixwebo]

I think commission junction has been around for long enough, if they are going to be hurt by loosing one partner, as big as they may be, I doubt it hurts them in the long run.

If anything, this is all good free publicity for the company and others will pick up the slack through time.

[Daisy]

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that CJ will still take care of the reporting (I hope it's not true!). Anybody heard about this? If true, not smart, since this was a constant issue.

[nixwebo]

Originally Posted by Daisy

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that CJ will still take care of the reporting (I hope it's not true!). Anybody heard about this? If true, not smart, since this was a constant issue.

I have not, but that would be weird wouldn't it?

Who knows the score on clicksor.com obviously this site likes to promote it. Is it just a mlm adsense or is there anything special about it?

[Czar]

Hi Nixweb,

Can you please start a new thread to discuss Clicksor. That way, this current thread will remain on topic and your question will be given far greater visibility.

Thanks,
Josh

[Daisy]

Well so far no problems with the new program. Sign up was fast and easy. I have checked for any CJ involvement and only found this bit in EPN privacy policy so far:

Service Providers. We may share information with service providers under contract who help with our business operations (for example, verifying our users and providing related services). Our service providers are required to keep the information confidential and use it only for the services they provide to us or to the Advertiser in whose program you participate.

It doesn't mention CJ anywhere. I wonder what EPN means by "verifying our users"?

[kmedia]

The 5% addition to the commission rate it nice!