affiliate marketing - ReadWriteWeb

Automatic Affiliate-Link Insertion Service Gets Google Backing

Mike Melanson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0800

Any web developer knows that it's a lack of universal standards that can make designing and maintaining a web site unbearable. Startup venture VigLink says it's here to handle at least one consistent issue - keeping affiliate link programs bringing in the bucks. The service says it is going to go even further and recover affiliate dollars you didn't know you were losing.

]]> The company announced today that it closed a seed investment round and it has a laundry list of technology insiders as backers, including First Round Capital, Google Ventures, LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman, longtime Google executive and current LinkedIn VP of Product Deep Nishar and a number of noted technology entrepreneurs.

CEO Oliver Roup and Architect Rodrigo Leroux co-founded the company in March of last year and Roup told us today that the company was set to go live in the next few months. At the moment, it is still in beta-testing, but we had a quick chat with Roup over what to expect.

Affiliate Marketing

VigLink is looking to stand on the in-between ground of affiliate marketing, betwixt merchants and affiliates. Before we move on with the what and how, let's briefly clarify our terms. In affiliate marketing, a merchant rewards an affiliate for traffic and pays commission on purchases made by referred visitors. Referring a friend to sign on with a cell phone company and getting $10 off your next month's bill is an example of affiliate marketing. In this case, the cell phone company is the "merchant" and you are the "affiliate" or "publisher".

According to VigLink's web site, more than half of all affiliate links are improperly formatted, which means that the affiliate loses out on hard earned commission dollars. If the customer cannot be tracked, the affiliate cannot get paid. The service solves this problem with a JavaScript snippet inserted into the affiliate's web site, which makes sure all links are properly formatted.

Changing the Name of the Game

But while formatting affiliate-links properly can be a time-consuming pain, any web developer worth their salt should be able to handle the task. It's not here that the service is going to make a difference. CEO Oliver Roup told us today that the real focus is all the money that is being lost, not only on improperly formatted links, but links to sites with affiliate programs that your site is not enrolled in.

"Every time a link leaves your site, value is being created," he explained. "You should be able to capitalize on that value."

The interesting new twist that VigLink introduces to the affiliate marketing game is that you don't even have to know that you're linking to a merchant to make a commission. It's almost like having an agent. If a visitor from your site makes a purchase, VigLink keeps track and collects the commission for you, taking a percentage for itself.

The company's success now relies on getting some big name merchants involved. Since the service is free to affiliate members, it won't take as much to get followers on that end of the spectrum. Pending that, we think that this is an idea that could be going places.

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Google Sells Performics Search Marketing Business to Publicis Groupe

Frederic Lardinois — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:25:28 -0800

Google has just announced that it will sell its Performics search marketing business to Paris-based Publicis Groupe. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008. Google acquired Performics when it bought DoubleClick and after this deal closed in March, Google had already announced that it was going to split up Performics into a search marketing and an affiliate marketing division. Google rebranded the Performics affiliate marketing business in June, but hadn't announced any plans for the search marketing business until now.

]]> Publicis Groupe is one of the world's largest advertising holding companies and is headquartered in Paris. Its portfolio ranges from traditional television, magazine, cinema, and radio advertising, to a number of agencies focused on Internet marketing. According to Google, this makes Publicis an ideal buyer for Performics.

Google obviously does not want to be in the search engine marketing business. This would create a constant conflict of interest inside Google and the company would hardly be able to keep up any appearance of objectivity.

As we reported in June, Google already rebranded the affiliate network side of Performics as the Google Affiliate Network. At that time, we noticed that this rebranding was only done half-heartedly, as Google basically only put a new store-front on the old Performics Affiliate Network. By now, the user interface has seen a refresh that is more in line with Google's regular properties.

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Google Rebrands Performics: Launches Affiliate Network

Frederic Lardinois — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:50:16 -0800

Today, Google announced that it is rebranding DoubClick's Performics Affiliate as the Google Affiliate Network. Google acquired DoubleClick in March 2008 for $3.1 Billion. The Google Affiliate Network is not yet integrated into Google's AdSense and will continue to be hosted at ConnectCommerce.com for the time being. Companies currently featured on the network include Target, Kohls.com, Citibank, Circuit City, Zazzle, Bank of America, Verizon, and Barnes & Noble.

]]> It's interesting that Google seems to feel enough pressure to only half-heartedly rebrand Performics. While the login page is very much in line with Google's other products, it only redirects users to the old Performics page. Also, under its AdSense banner, Google is already offering a number of pay-per-action options (though at least in name, this is still a beta).

Google is clearly trying to expand its advertising portfolio both for publishers and advertisers. Chances are that Google will integrate the Affiliate network into AdSense in the long run. Given the synergies between the two, it does seem strange, though, that Google would not be doing this already. But then, Google does often seem to take a rather long time to integrate its acquisitions (just think GrandCentral of Jaiku).

Google is only slowly opening up the Affiliate Network to new publishers. Those interested in signing up are currently being forwarded to an application form.

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