Class Action Lawsuit against Valueclick, CJ and BeFree

Here's an interesting one... Valueclick, CJ and BeFree are being sued by Settlement Recovery Center LLC for breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment and unfair business practices. The claims are based on CJ and BeFree allowing Publishers (I'll use the CJ terminology) to use loyalty software (referred to as adware...

Google's Advertising Everywhere

You've already heard that Google bought Doubleclick for $3.1 billion. That's a nice profit for JMI Equity and Hellman & Friedman, the two private equity firms that bought Doubleclick two years ago for $1.1 billion and took it private. The number is also about double what Google clicked for YouTube......

Migrating Affiliate Networks

I'll give you a quick entry on affiliate marketing. I just mocked a friend. He's been in affiliate marketing for years at a network and is now a publisher. (I've noticed the move from network and merchant to publisher a lot and definitely more than the other way.) He was...

Cleanse Our Palettes

I have been reading Wayne's posts about the changes coming to Revenews. I will contribute to the current state of turmoil (a more interesting word than change) and make a mess on our clean slate. I'll bring the Swiffers to take care of the mess. They will clean and sanitize....

Cookie Washing

No, I'm not writing about my kids eating or baking habits (although they did raise almost $100 for Katrina victims last year with a lemonade and cookie stand). Vinny Lingam wrote on his blog (yes, he should write here too) about a study by Ben Edelman that was commissioned by...

Vonage not Placing Calls to Affiliates about Spyware?

If you've missed it, a bunch of internet hotshots are duking it out over Vonage's alleged spyware use. I say alleged only because I haven't looked at the data and don't have time to get into it. It's been well covered by others so I would recommend reading what Ben...

Jeff Molander Puts in His 2 Cents

On April 1st, Missy Ward won the auction for JeffMolander.com. Yes, I registered Jeff's domain and auctioned it off. The winning bid was for $265, all of which I donated to the Aviva Familay and Chilren's Services, an organization that helps abused girls. How could I top a feat of...

eBay Affiliate Network

No, eBay is not launching an affiliate network... at least I haven't heard humors to that effect. But I did get your attention for my musings. eBay doesn't appear to be happy with theCJ Link Management Initiative. Other merchants aren't pleased and some have gone so far as to sign...

LMI: Buy on the Rumor, Sell on the News (aka Questions for CJ)

As I am sure you have heard by now, the rumor about CJ extending the date for madatory Javascript links under its Link Management Initiative - Phase I has been pushed out indefinitely. That is great news. Again, I commend CJ for making this change. Of course, I still have...

LMI = Leave My links Intact!

Rumors out of Santa Barbara are that Javascript links will be optional for at least 6 months and that publishers and advertisers will receive at least 6 months notice before javascript links are made mandatory. Yes, optional. This is fantastic news for all and this is the way it should...

eBay Opts out of LMI

Maybe I'm reading this wrong. I rubbed my eyes when I read it. As it was sent out to tens of thousands of publishers (many of whom reside in New York and Chicago), I didn't think it was a problem to post it here. Writes eBay's affiliate team: Important Email...

CJ Petition

If you haven't signed the CJ Petition (CJ, that's short for Created by Jangro), I assume it is because either you work for ValueClick or you haven't heard about the petition yet. I've spent the past week writing that everyone needs to calm down. I admit that my calm on...

Brand Names: When Is Their Use SEO SPAM?

I recently talked to a couple of people from a multi-channel merchant. The call was facilitated by the affiliate network. The company has stores, a website and a catalog. Your typical multi-channel merchant. I'm not going to mention the name because that is not important. I don't want to make...

CJ Assassinated JFK

Or was it that Jimmy Hoffa is buried under CJ's old offices? I can't keep all of the CJ conspiracy theories straight at this point. Is CJ's Link Management Initiative - Phase I (LMI) being created to force out the smaller mom and pop affiliates? Or was it to give...

CJ's Link Management Initiative: Chill Out, People!

As you have read across blogs and forums this week, CJ announced Phase I of its Link Management Initiative. A lot of people have been yelling and screaming about it. The only thing that is clear to me is that nothing is clear yet. I spoke to a few people...

The Affilate Marketing Summer Tour: Do Affiliate Networks Talk?

I can't believe it. It is almost as if the "Big 3" affiliate networks had a conference call with each other and Shawn Collins to coordinate the dates of their conferences. Either they have a standing reservation on the month of their conference or they drew straws. In any event,...

MetaReward: No Rewards for Employees

Jay Weintraub broke this story yesterday. It looks like MetaReward is having serious layoffs. What does this mean for its various business lines? Affiliate Fuel may pick up some of the slack on the affiliate marketing side. LowerMyBills could pick up a few areas too. 2005 was the Year of...

Triple Jangro

No, a Triple Jangro isn't a skating move. It's not a rare bone condition. It's not a tool that mecahnics use on cars. The Rumour Mill has it that three top account managers left CJ this week to avoid enforcement of a policy forbidding them to have affiliate sites of...

Comment SPAM

I would think that even Comment SPAMmers would set some limits. If you had an "affiliate website" and you were using Comment SPAM, would you try posting these comments at Revenews? Worse, would you try putting it on several of my articles? That's exactly what deals.grabline.com chose to do. The...

Merchant Communications

There are enough folks around to point out all of the bad things that affiliates do (yes, I include myself as one of those people who point these things out) so some of us like to point out the silly things that merchants do as well. Many of us on...

The Affiliate Revolution Happened

My friend, Jeff Molander, has been turning any discussion on Revenews that is about affiliate marketing into a forum for him to rant about trademark bidding. In addition, he has been mentioning my name (whether or not I have commented) and assigning points of view to me that I have...

MSN AdCenter and CJU

I'm stuffing two related issues into one post. It should make sense by the end. Last Tuesday I went on the CJ Performer boat cruise around the Channel. It was on Charlie Munger's catamaran. The storm that was pounding LA (as much as LA gets pounded) with rain, thunder and...

Shawn M. Collins Sues 180 Solutions

Would you believe that Shawn Collins is suing 180 Solutions? OK, aside from the fact that our Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit fame doesn't seem like the type of person to fire off class action lawsuits, I would think he would stick to his native (or is it adopted?) New...

Forgetting Past Sins

Do you remember what Rob Lowe did that ruined his career? Wait, he has a career again. While his shows post The West Wing may not have had much success, he keeps getting new shows, the true sign of success in Hollywood. Why? Because people forget. Scandals blow over. As...

The Affiliate List: Publishers, Pundits & Thieves

Jeff Molander loves controversy. That said, I don't think that he imagined that his Affiliate List would cause as much controversy as it has. Then again, he couldn't have hoped to get this much free advertising for it. Jeff is a writer on Revenews. Does that mean that this is...

Bad Merchant Communications 101

I don't mean to always point out the bad in merchant communications. I do for two reasons: the bad one stick out (meaning the good ones don't get noticed as being great which is one reason they are great... they just make sense) and they are funnier. You would think...

Affiliate Marketing Is Dead

Now that I have your attention... It's not that Affiliate Marketing is dead. It is more that change is happening... faster than we think. AdSense is changing Affiliate Marketing. The introduction of YPN will keep that change coming. (I don't think Kanoodle will change much but I'll be happy if...

What's Wrong with Affiliate Marketing? It's not Affiliates!

Declan Dunn kicked off Affiliate Summit earlier this week with an energetic keynote address. He was great. Beyond his passion that exudes with every word, he is dead on right... except for one point. Declan presented his "Internet With Integrity" Affiliate Manifesto. It contains five points: Market with good purpose;...

Ad$ense: Threat or Savior for Publishers

The second half of Stephen Messer's lunch talk at Affiliate Summit was a discussion on the effects of AdSense on affiliates. This is a hot topic and I am glad to see that it is getting focus at the highest levels of affiliate networks. Lunch wasn't the place to highlight...

Messer Gives Transparency of Athena

Kudos to Stephen Messer for taking time during lunch at Affiliate Summit to give transparency to what went wrong with the launch of Project Athena. You may recall that many affiliates were unable to re-register their Linkshare accounts. The problem was, Linkshare gave no information aside from "try again in...

Coupon Sites: Choose Your Partners Wisely

Connie Berg recently wrote about how some merchants won't work with any coupon sites. I often write that merchants and networks need to pick their partners (yes, affiliates should be considered partners to both merchants and networks) more carefully. Many sites that have coupons, such as Flamingo World, have a...

Experian Buys LowerMyBills

The press release reads: Experian Interactive launches with acquisition of LowerMyBills.com Acquisition positions Experian as major channel for consumer-direct transactions over the Internet - combined company will now be 15th-largest Internet company in U.S. Experian has been on the hunt acquiring companies. Add LowerMyBills to Affiliate Fuel (4/25) and MetaReward...

Affster: Molander Is Back in the Game!

I haven't been asking Jeff Molander to take action lately. Why? Because about a month ago Jeff let me in on his big news. No, not Affiliate Clue Train. Jeff is getting back into affiliate marketing. That's right, Jeff launched Affster, the newest affiliate marketing network. When Jeff called me,...

Praise for Petco

Yesterday I wrote about Petco having links to affiliates and other sites hidden on its pages. I checked back to see if they took action. Call me an optimist. As it turns out, the offending code is gone. Removed from the site. We most likely will never know what really...

Doggone it: Petco and Merchant SEO for Affiliates

I often hear that the problem with affiliate marketing is affiliates. I'm not going to get into that today but instead will give an example of a merchant (or its partner) that has crossed the electronic boundary. Birds of a Feather Flock Together Some merchants have pages to promote their...

The Check's in UPS

Is UPS or FedEx delivery intended to make people feel special? Is it a benefit? I don't think so. In some cases, it's downright silly. Take Linkshare for instance. It sends out checks to winners of Linkshare Club via FedEx. You would think that this were to send the prize...

Become.com Becomes an Affiliate

Become.com launched in beta today. It was started by Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun, the founders of MySimon. While it claims to be a shopping search engine, I'm not sure how it differs from a standard search engine. The main body of the SERPs has textual search results. Google AdWords...

Browster: Surfing Aid or Spyware?

Browster announced the launch of its software today. What is it, you ask. Browster’s intelligent preloading puts a computer’s spare CPU cycles to work and helps the user browse faster. For example, a search on Google may result in numerous links. Browster identifies the major search result links and retrieves...

Eternal Logins at Online Stores

Bruce Schneier posted an interesting piece on logins that never expire with online stores. I've heard people talk about how merchants try to get the lifetime value of the customer by first getting the customer to register and then sending an never-ending batch of e-mails to get the customer to...

Affiliate Identity Theft

Last year I was the victim of identity theft. You think it can't happen to you. It can. This year, I have fallen victim to a new form of identity theft which I call "Affiliate Identity Theft". A few weeks ago, an affiliate manager asked me if I had applied...

An AFFront to good marketing

I spent two and a half years educating the world why paid search was relevant. It was a tough battle. I even made a trip to Google. We wanted Google to place GoTo (now Overture) paid listings on its search results pages. The answer was simple: NO WAY! Can you...

Become an Affiliate Narc: Part II

Last week, Wayne Porter questioned Linkshare's request to affiliates to report other affliates who are found to be breaking the rules. He ended with a good question: "Why partner with people you don't trust?" However, I think that these are separate issues. Maybe I'm naive but I trust police officers,...

Google Gets Into Affiliate Marketing

Hello, Google. Welcome to the world of affiliate marketing! Google announced the acquisition of Picasa today. In so doing, Google bought its way into its first affiliate program. Has Commission Junction called Google to welcome it into the family of Advertisers? Does Google want to be in the affiliate game?...