Filed under: Affiliate Networks
While not as talked about as the big players, niche comparison engines create a significant amount of price-driven traffic and sales. Sites like www.findcontactlenses.com and www.healthpricer.com offer a more focused shopping experience than the large malls but they do not have the same ability to negotiate independent affiliate relationships as the major sites. Often these smaller companies rely on affiliate networks to provide them with datafeeds and to track their sales.
The 800-lb. Gorilla of the affiliate network arena, Commission Junction, sent out an email to all of it’s affiliates on Wednesday evening, and the policy updates outlined therein may have a chilling impact on smaller comparison engines that rely on the network to monetize their traffic. In the email, CJ alerted affiliates that in the upcoming year, all websites displaying the network’s links will have to do so using javascript to call the link remotely from CJ’s servers. What does this mean for the vertical comparison engines?
- Reliance on another site’s servers to display link text: I don’t know anyone who thinks this is a good idea. Any outage or delay on the link delivery leaves a blank space where the script is called.
- Search engines do not currently index text printed out from javascript, again leaving holes on the page.
- Most importantly, smaller comparison engines will likely lose the ability to modify the link before displaying. All of the “Buy Now” or “$24.95″ links will have to be replaced with whatever link text the advertiser sees fit. Also lost is the ability to calculate the price on the fly with S/H and display that price as a link.
Many high visibilty merchants that smaller engines rely on are only available through Commission Junction: eBay, Buy.com, eCost.com, 1-800-Contacts, Vitamin Shoppe, etc. If the Commission Junction Link Management Initiative goes ahead as planned, many smaller engines currently displaying those merchants will be forced to drop their listings. I don’t see how any responsible site owner would want to integrate javascript links into their comparison database without the ability to control how those links are displayed on the page — it is highly unlikely the engine will be able to match the look and output of the new CJ links to their other links. And it isn’t just niche comparison engines that will be affected; smaller coupon sites like Amazing Bargains and regional comparison engines like PriceCanada both use the same Commission Junction datafeeds.
So what are the choices for operators of these affiliate-powered shopping sites?
Either they drop the Commission Junction network and find new merchants, conform to the new Commission Junction policy and attempt integrate the javascript links, or somehow convince the network to make this change optional instead of mandatory. There are very few, if any, benefits to the affiliate that makes this change. One major benefit I see for Commission Junction’s parent company, Valueclick, is that they also own PriceRunner. It seems convenient that this link format change will all but eliminate CJ merchant links from smaller price comparison engines. Will PriceRunner have to conform to the new linking standard? I somehow doubt it.
5 Comments so far
Leave a comment
The time is ripe for a competitor to emarge and rake cj over the coals, google are you listening? ahhh yes google is. look out cj here comes the 900 pound gorilla right in your face.
Comment by mrrbobs_easy_classifieds 06.25.06 @ 9:59 pmThere are numerous sites out there that consume these feeds and spit out data. The aforementioned PriceCanada and a newer site called Wishabi.ca are just a two examples. I am not sure if CJ is enforcing the JS links much any more, but some other middle man such as LinkShare goes one step worse by prohibiting sites from negotiating independent agreements with merchants, thus locking them in (well, you can, but as soon as they find out, they hold all your money and prevents you from earning money on any other links). Now, that is evil.
Comment by Victor Chang 08.08.09 @ 6:02 pmHi, Good article!
Here is just a tip about another affiliate network: http://www.affiliatestar.com
More than 150 affiliate programs. Both per lead and per sale programs in several categories.
Thats java for you. Someone always want you to do the java on your end
Comment by wedding videographer 02.12.11 @ 2:25 pmAn attention-grabbing discussion is value comment. I feel that you need to write extra on this topic, it won’t be a taboo topic but typically persons are not sufficient to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
Comment by Mayweather vs Cotto Live Streaming 05.02.12 @ 11:50 pmLeave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>