News Brief: LinkShare Claims BLUE BOOK Top Spot for Performance Marketing

After analyzing over 100,000 responses and considering 500 networks, the mThink BLUE BOOK granted the top spot in its affiliate network category to industry-leader LinkShare. This year, mThink did things a little differently to improve the quality of the results. mThink CEO, Chris Trayhorn broke down the new approach:

For the first time we split our survey respondents into affiliates/publishers and merchants/advertisers so we could identify how their experiences with networks are different. And then we went further, dividing each of those groups into those who focus on CPS campaigns and those who specialize in CPA/CPL.

This segmenting of our respondent base means that we are able to clearly see which networks are loved by affiliates while being disliked by merchants, and vice versa. We can see those networks that genuinely are generating a lot of conversions via both business models as compared to those that only claim to. Additionally, the alignment of questions with the interests of the respondents has encouraged feedback and comments in greater depth than before.

How did LinkShare claim top honors? They invested in new technology and offered “a great publisher experience.”

“Being ranked as the industry’s leading performance marketing network is an honor and a privilege, said Yaz Iida, president and CEO of LinkShare. “It represents the great spirit of trust and teamwork present in the LinkShare Network and inspires us to lead the industry as we continue to grow with new advertisers and publishers every year.”

mThink makes it a point to ensure that the BLUE BOOK doesn’t turn into a popularity contest. Part of their effort includes using a Blue-Ribbon Panel to review the responses and add industry perspective to put the answers of “affiliates, publishers, advertisers and agencies ” in context. Owned by Japanese-based Rakuten, LinkShare’s ranking only bodes well for future efforts to expand the reach of Rakuten’s latest acquisition, Kobo.