Internet Dating Affiliates

Now Date.com Is Dead On Commission Junction

OPW - Dec 12 - Date.com went down, along with other Avalanche Media products Gk2gk and Matchmaker.com a few weeks back now. Date.com now forwards to Matchmaker and Gk2gk is live again. The word on the grapevine is internal strife and a legal suit. Hopefully they can sort it out. Date.com and Matchmaker are hallmark dating sites. The company has suffered for not having a good mobile offering of late. Now Commission Junction is down, according to one of their affiliates. The following letter was sent out.

Subject: Commission Junction Advertiser Date.com (X) has been deactivated

Dear Valued Publisher,
Please be aware that Date.com, one of the advertisers you are joined to in the Commission Junction network, has been deactivated. While Date.com is deactivated, you will not receive commissions for traffic you drive via the advertiser's banners, text links, and/or other link types. Consequently, please replace these links as soon as possible with links from active advertisers. To view the links you are using that are generating traffic for Date.com but from which you are earning no revenue, go to the Invalid Links Generating Traffic Report.

During the advertiser's deactivation, you will still remain affiliated with Date.com if and when the advertiser reactivates its affiliate marketing program with Commission Junction. Once reactivated, Date.com will appear in My Advertisers in the Account Manager. You will receive another email from Commission Junction alerting you to the advertiser's reactivation.

To view all of your affiliated advertisers who have been deactivated from the Commission Junction network, go to the Deactivated Advertisers Report.

If you have further questions regarding the status of Date.com, please contact your Commission Junction account representative or Client Support.

Best regards,
Commission Junction

From affiliates perspective, this really sucks! Affiliates put a lot of work into getting SEO rank. The good ones (like the one who sent me the heads up on this) deserve to have more notice and more respect than 'oops, now we're not payin' ya.' I guess it comes with the territory, but still, we can surely do better by affiliates. No wonder they're running for the igaming hills.

This post also appears on OnlinePersonalsWatch.

Friends Worldwide Launches Partner Program With CJ

PR WEB - May 16 - Friends Worldwide has launched partner program which offers affiliates 75% of the first sale of all referred traffic (up to $75 per sale). Publishers can apply for the new program from within their CJ account.

See full article at PR Web

Commission Junction Rebrands As CJ Affiliate By Conversant

AFFILIATE TIP - Feb 4 - The change is part of an overall update by ValueClick, which acquired CJ in 2003. ValueClick is now Conversant. If you have an account at CJ, nothing will change.

by Shawn Collins
See full article at Affiliate Tip

Mysinglefriend.com Launches New Affiliate Programme

THE DRUM - Sep 19 - Dating site mysinglefriend.com has launched a new affiliate programme with Commission Junction. Mysinglefriend.com was founded in 2004 by TV presenter Sarah Beeney and takes a unique approach to online dating, where profiles are written by friends of the user.

by Michael Feeley
See full article at The Drum

SeekingArrangement.com Launches Affiliate Program with Commission Junction

PR WEB - Oct 27 - SeekingArrangement.com, the sugar daddy dating site, launched its new Affiliate program with Commission Junction. Webmasters and publishers will be able to earn up to 40% of each sale.

See full article at PR Web

Global Personals Launches Niche Dating Affiliate Program

GLOBAL PERSONALS - Jan 18 – Global Personals Ltd is now offering digital publishers the opportunity to place banner ads for the company's business-to-consumer niche dating sites. Operators of websites, blogs and other online spaces will earn commission for sales that have been generated. Targeted marketing of these niche dating sites will result in high conversion rates, which equal high commission for affiliates. Paul Fitzpatrick, Head of Consumer Marketing at Global Personals, comments: “This programme provides the perfect opportunity for tailored advertising directly with the publisher. We are keen to award affiliates, and high performers will be offered generous bonus incentives. Join today and start earning commissions of up to 100% and £50 a sale.” The program is currently offering DatingAgency.com for the over 40's market and JustSingleParents.

AB178 Is BACK

FF -- June 23 -- AB-178 - Sales/Use Tax Nexus Bill would require retailers that receive referrals from advertising on websites, to collect sales tax in California. Amazon will drop its CA affiliates if this tax is enacted. Commission Junction and Link Share are opposed to the internet retail tax and strongly encourage affiliates to send a letter of opposition to Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny.

Happy 10th Birthday Commission Junction!

ADOTAS -- Nov 3 -- ValueClick's Commission Junction is celebrating its 10-year anniversary as one of the first global affiliate marketing networks. CJ, among other things, was one of the first to introduce the idea of an open marketplace in which the performance metrics of advertisers and publishers are available to all network members. FULL ARTICLE @ ADOTAS

See all posts on CommissionJunction

Casual Dating Affiliate Payouts Top The Industry

FF -- Feb 15 -- Does anyone know of any dating affiliate programs that pay out higher than casual dating sites?  The super fast growing dating sites Fling and SexSearch are topping my research on payouts. SexSearch is paying out $90 and Fling $50 per paid sign up over Valentines. Adultfriendfinder is definitely feeling the heat on its tail from these two. I'm surprised how many dating sites don't have affiliate programs. Match, eHarmony, Perfectmatch and Yahoo! have good programs, but many top and second tier players have relatively small programs, if they have them at all. From the affiliate perspective adult dating sites just plain convert better, which would partly explain the rise in popularity of casual dating sites over the last few years. CJ, Linkshare, Azoogleads, Shareasale, Primary Ads, and Link Connector all drive significant amounts of traffic to dating sites.  CJ seems to have the most offers. Email me at [email protected] for a copy of my spreadsheet listing all the dating offer payouts on the top affiliate networks. - Mark Brooks

TRUE Live On CX Interactive

FF -- Dec 20 -- TRUE canceled their Commission Junction affiliate program and relationship and I just got a heads up that they have started up with CX Interactive. They canceled with CJ because, they said, they had an unacceptably high level of fraud. CX have just run their first couple of million impressions with TRUE.  They're running all standard ad units. CX seems keen to ad more dating offers from other providers.

Spark Networks Consolidates CJ Affiliate Programs

ONLINE DATING INSIDER -- Nov 15 -- Spark Networks Limited has rolled all of its CJ accounts into one. Now you can promote AmericanSingles, BlackSingles, ChristianMingle, Date.ca and JDate all from the same program. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE DATING INSIDER

Commission Junction Announces New Clients

ONLINE MEDIA DAILY -- Sep 11 -- ValueClick’s Commission Junction, a provider of affiliate marketing solutions, reported Monday that it broke a record for new client contract signings. New clients include Air France Canada, Avenue.com, Borders, Café Press, Corel, E*TRADE FINANCIAL, Intuit, Lavalife, Oneida, shop.com, and Tinderbox.com. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE MEDIA DAILY

CafeMom’s Affiliate Program On Commission Junction

AFFILIATE MARKETING BLOG -- Aug 23 -- CafeMom, the sister company to ClubMom that shut down their affiliate program in March of this year, launched its own affiliate program on Commission Junction in May. CafeMom, an online community created especially for moms, is paying a $2 CPA and a 5-25% conversion rate. FULL ARTICLE @ AFFILIATE MARKETING BLOG

CPC Option for Some Google Advertisers

BIZ REPORT -- Feb 21 -- Starting next month, some Google advertisers will be able to choose CPC advertising options to place display ads on specific websites. Google is looking for advertisers to take part in the pilot program. FULL ARTICLE @ BIZ REPORT

Mark Brooks: How will the likes of CJ and LinkShare fare when Google gets traction with CPA advertising?

CJ For Sale?

REVENEWS BLOG -- Oct 11 -- ValueClick aquired BeFree in March 2002 for $128 million in an all stock deal, however, BeFree had about $110 million in the bank, and so ValueClick bought BeFree for next to nothing. Then, in 2003, ValueClick bought CJ for $58 million in cash and stock. ValueClick has combined these two affiliate networks into one network powerhouse. So, in aggregate, ValueClick paid around $60 million for their affiliate marketing business. CJ has a number of two stand out business risks. First, eBay has outgrown its partnership with CJ, and it is clearly time for eBay to become less dependant on CJ and recently move set up their own affiliate infrastructure. Second, industry watchers have privately wondered if the ValueClick leadership understands affiliate marketing. Also, employees are leaving in droves which demonstrates a problem. 

Back in May, ValueClick and Aqauantive had merger talks that fizzed out, but this demonstrates that the Aquantive model is very attractive to ValueClick. Aquantive is AvenueA/Razorfish (Agency), Atlas (ad serving technology), and DrivePM (ad network).

ValueClick's affiliate marketing revenue last year was $78 million and for 2006, I would expect revenue to be about $100 million given their growth trajectory this year so far. If ValueClick sells CJ, this would give Zarely and Vadnais the cash to buy agency and create another Aqauantive type player.

The full article was originally published at Revenews Blog, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: And Google is working on a CPA network...  That would but a kink in CJ and Linkshare's market share. Google would undercut and outdo them, most surely.