Up until this announcement, it was Yahoo’s policy that you couldn’t send sponsored traffic to a site that you did not own, even if you had a working affiliate agreement with the merchant to do so. This policy has not always been implemented across the board; I have been able to get direct link ads up in YSM for years, but this policy would often rear its ugly head at the worst times, after all the work was done. Yahoo has shut down entire accounts of mine in the past in an effort to enforce this ill-advised policy. I am happy to announce they have come to their senses.

This represents a significant shift and CJ is bragging that they had a lot to do with this policy change. What role CJ has played is not clear, but they announce it as follows:

After more than six months in the making and much customer feedback and testing, we are pleased to announce that Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) has recently updated its editorial policies and will now allow U.S. publishers to direct link to their advertisers. In the past, YSM’s editorial policy prevented publishers from linking directly to their advertiser partners and required that traffic be sent first to the publisher’s Web site. The new policy eliminates this restriction and opens a much broader search marketing opportunity for publishers. 

This YSM policy change is the result of a strong relationship between Commission Junction and YSM. We have spent more than six months working with YSM to enact the new editorial policy and are very pleased that this effort has resulted in changes that are sure to create opportunities for our publishers and advertisers.

CJ will no doubt win big points for helping to make this happen. There are many affiliates who spend precious time building out landing pages or redirect systems to get around the old policy. This will certainly affect the way many PPC affiliates do business.

I never understood their old policy and how Yahoo could justify leaving so much money on the table. Only in a huge corporation could fear of legal actions, cause such an irrational policy.

Yahoo is now poised to woo Google-weary affiliates after numerous “quality guidelines” slaps against affiliates in the Adwords format. Many recent studies have shown the Google slaps have been a boon for small PPC marketing platforms, which have absorbed many affiliates looking to recoup lost traffic. Yahoo can now attract these advertisers with a more permissive policy than Google. Hopefully this will give them a competitive advantage, and show Google that they “slap” affiliates at their peril.

“Pepperjam Network represents an evolution in affiliate marketing. The creation of Pepperjam Network represents eight years of research and development and the combined ideas, feedback, and intelligence of hundreds of affiliate marketers and advertisers. Pepperjam Network will forever change the face of affiliate marketing by putting power back in the hands of affiliates and advertisers to build long-term, profitable partnerships through better communication tools and transparency,” said Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam.

Among a variety of affiliate marketing enhancements, Pepperjam Network addresses the two primary shortcomings of other existing affiliate networks, namely (1) poor, unreliable communication tools and (2) lack of affiliate transparency. With Pepperjam Network, affiliates and advertisers can communicate in real-time via Pepperjam Chatâ„¢, thereby providing a reliable communication system to build stronger, more profitable partnerships. Pepperjam Network also provides advertisers with an unprecedented measure of affiliate transparency, which helps to establish trust, protect brand integrity, and lays the groundwork for open, long-term, profitable relationships. Pepperjam Network also introduces pepperjamADS, which is a first-ever affiliate marketing widget that affiliates can use to serve customized contextual ads from multiple Pepperjam Network advertisers at the same time. (read more)

I must admit I haven’t yet had time to sign up for the network, but I will certainly be doing so in the future. I will report back to the readers of this blog what I find in due time.

If you have signed up already and want to share your thoughts about this new affiliate network, then post a comment below.

 

In a previous post about Linkshare’s new weekly payments I pointed out that CJ closes all transactions automatically within 10 – 20 days of the previous month’s end. This is a very affiliate friendly strategy and it ensures affiliates are paid more than 90% of their earnings 20 days from the previous month’s end.

In contrast, Linkshare allows their merchants 90 days to close and make payments on their transactions. That is 4 to 5 times longer than Commission Junction allows. This doesn’t mean any specific merchant can’t close them earlier, they can. But the fact that the default is 90 days is not very affiliate friendly. Merchants, just like affiliates, are very busy and don’t get around to things like closing transactions until they have to. As a result, affiliates are paid months late for their commissions. If you are an affiliate who runs PPC advertising, this can be devastating, because you have to carry your PPC bill and pay interest on it until the payments come in. The bottom line is, this eats into the profitability of any PPC affiliate.

I am going to share a snapshot of my experience with late paymets as of November 20, 2007 after 6 months as an affiliate with Linkshare. I feel this information is critical to affiliates and merchants considering doing business with Linkshare Corporation. I am doing this so any affiliate can fully understand what they are getting into if and when they join Linkshare.

As of November 20, 2007 I had not been paid out 69.2% of my commissions earned in September! That means almost 2 months later I have still not received the vast majority of commissions earned.

In contrast, at Commission Junction, I received 98.8% of my commissions earned in September on October 17, 2007 (over a month ago). Linkshare cannot compete with CJ as long as their payouts are untimely. This policy makes it clear to affiliates that Linkshare’s priorities are to please merchants and not its affiliate partners.

As of November 20, 2007 I still have outstanding, unpaid commissions that were earned in June, July, August, September and October. You would have to be the Buddha himself to have the patience to wait for these payments to be made!

The reality is, that many of them may never be made at all. Those in June and July are from merchants who left the Linkshare network without paying. Hence, Linkshare feels no need to pay me. Again another contractual arrangement made by Linkshare benefiting merchants and hurting affiliates.

I am sorry to report that even after the implementation of Linkshare’s weekly payment system, Linkshare’s payments to affiliates are Late, Late and Lacking.

Unlike Commission Junction, Linkshare allows its advertisers to pay their affiliates directly or to pay through their system. This is problematic for an affiliate who manages hundreds of merchant relationships. Linkshare sends out its consolidated checks, but then specific merchants send out separate checks on their own schedule.

My main gripe with Linkshare payment system has been that they allow merchants 90 days to review each and every transaction before they are considered final and closed. Commission Junction on the other hand gives merchants 10 days after the end of each month to review transactions from the previous month. Only if a merchant is unable to verify a specific transaction within this time period are they allowed to “extend” the review period to 90 days. Both Linkshare and Commission Junction allow 90 day review periods but CJ defaults to the shorter period of 10 days, while Linkshare defaults to 90 days. Basically, CJ is more affiliate friendly than Linkshare. Linkshare is more merchant friendly.

Does this weekly payment system change all that? I see no indication that is does. Linkshare wins some points for trying to improve on one of their network weaknesses, but until they default to a shorter review period, I will prefer CJ’s payment system. I actual appreciate the once monthly payments CJ provides. They are easy to keep track of and I don’t feel like I am losing commissions I may have earned 3 months ago but don’t have time to keep track of. This problem is exacerbated by recent reporting outages at Linkshare that continue as of this date. 

Linkshare still has some work to do to make themselves more affiliate friendly. In the meantime CJ merchants will get more attention than they deserve because of the network they have chosen.

A bit of advice to Linkshare merchants: If you don’t want to move to CJ but you want to make your program affiliate friendly, then make sure you approve the previous month’s affiliate transactions within the first 10 days of the month. This effectively equalizes the issue, and perhaps even works in Linkshare’s favor because of the new weekly payment system.