10 Comments

Linkshare To Take On AdSense?

Sep 16, 2006
by

denton.jpg
In the Steve Denton interview in the September issue of Revenue magazine Steve correctly points out that affiliate marketing, ad networks, and AdSense are all ways that websites get paid comissions for driving measurable events. He then says that Linkshare needs to:

“stay focused on providing our clients with new ways to engage with their customers, (and) new ways to monitize those engagements…”

Several years ago when Adense was on the ascent I asked Steve Messer why Linkshare didn’t take their impressive merchant list and massive website network and jump directly into the PPC text ad game. Stephen told me that Linkshare had very troubling experiences with pay-per-click earlier in their development, and he felt fraud and other problems were still too troublesome. While he accurately predicted many of the fraud problems Google is fighting today it’s clear that overall this was a market with legs. I think jumping in a few years ago could have increased the sucess (and eventual selling price) of LinkShare even further.

Is it too late? PPC text ads work and I’m sure the vast majority of LS merchants also run large budgets on Adwords, Yahoo Search, and MSN. Why not let them run PPC text ads on affiliate sites directly through the LinkShare network? Many affiliates run Adsense and other pay-per-click offers. Why not make LinkShare a one-stop-shop?

Denton doesn’t directly say if they plan to move in that direction, but I’d welcome it. What do you think?

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing
  • Jonathan (Trust)

    Are you talking about contextual text ads where affiliates get paid per click are just regular ads?

    I've noticed some merchants at SAS paying per click. But there is a huge amount of fraud but why would a merchant pay per click when with pay per sale they only pay for actual perforance?

  • http://www.jangro.com Scott Jangro

    CJ made a run at this a few years back with their CJ Evolution product. It was a miserable failure, partly because they launched during the height of the adsense honeymoon, but surely for other reasons. It ended up in the scrapheap.

    I still think that Valueclick has a much better shot at pulling something like this off than Linkshare has given their broader position in the marketplace.

  • http://www.thoughtshapers.com Jeff Molander

    Ironic isn't it (that Google cashed in on what affiliate marketing wasn't able to accomplish)? Now affiliate marketing is supposed to mimic Google? Doubtful IMO.

    When affiliate networks walk into advertisers' offices the "sell"/promise is 180 degrees polar opposite (of Google's). Let's start with an expectation of vastly more transparency in comparison. The entire fraud issue is rooted in this expectation of media transparency.

    But the real issue here is that affiliate networks (even in whole) do not have the sexy cache that Google has. Relative to Google, nobody feels that they're completely "not doing Web advertising" if they skip out on an affiliate program. That's Linkshare et al's biggest problem. If you need to validate that statement look no further than what Steven Messer has stated for the last few years.

  • Jonathan (Trust)

    "Ironic isn't it (that Google cashed in on what affiliate marketing wasn't able to accomplish)?"

    ? Jeff, tell me why a lot of advertisers opt out of Googles "content network"

    Fraudulent clicks, maybe.

  • http://blogs.commerce360.com Craig Danuloff

    Jeff: Not sure I understand your points. Affiliate merchants know who's in their networks, while adword advertisers aren't even told where there ads were placed after they paid for the clicks. Since merchants approve (and continue to allow) affiliates into their offers, they could ban/disallow sites where they felt fraud was a problem.

    Also don't understand the 'not doing web advertising' comment, nor know which Messer statement you refer to. Please expand on your ideas. – Thanks

  • http://www.revenews.com/wayneporter Wayne Porter

    I think Messer stated in an old conference call somewhere something along the lines of "Google and Amazon are the real enemies."

    Thought provoking discussion. I'll try to muster up a post on it.

    -wayne

  • http://www.veoreport.com Colin McDougall

    As part of the Affiliate Advisory Board, it is my personal goal to establish a code of conduct/ethics similar to what realtors must adhere to.

    If you don't play by the rules your out.

    Yes, this is coming from an idealistic point of view but if we can get to this point it will certainly curb the fraud if not completely eliminate it.

  • Jonathan (Trust)

    "As part of the Affiliate Advisory Board, it is my personal goal to establish a code of conduct/ethics similar to what realtors must adhere to.

    If you don't play by the rules your out."

    The problem with that is it's an Advisory Board for the networks. There's already a COC but rules not enforced are nothing. People in the past have reported rules violations and the networks "work" with them each time there is a rules violation instead of applying the boot.

    I've told Todd before do what Google does when they have rules or an update to them. When Google has an update to the terms, you can't get into your account until you check off you've read and understood the new rules.

    All the networks would have to do is when people sign in, the first thing they see are a clear set of rules and they can say if you violate you get the boot and then actually follow thru. Not hard to do.

  • http://blogs.commerce360.com Craig Danuloff

    Yes I heard Messer make that comment several times. The issue is whether they compete selling different products, or the same products. The fact is at this point many affiliates are going to allocate some real estate for PPC ads. Why should they have to go to Google (or elsewhere) to get them?

  • http://www.revenews.com/wayneporter/archives/002293.html ReveNews – Wayne Por

    To CPC or not to CPC- That is the Question…

    Welcome Craig Dunaloff on his opening round. Google was the brand darling that could pull it off despite the rough waters…waters many saw a long time ago…despite the ongoing and long standing commentary at Revenews who knew the reality. I often won…