03 Jun 09 Official : Microsoft to close Office Live Affiliate Program
OK, so admittedly, I haven’t been maintaining the site over the last few weeks (check the right sidebar for my Twitter activity tho’)… regardless, just got a note from Adrienne Erreca of Commission Junction that pretty much confirms that Microsoft will be ending the affiliate program for Office Live.
I don’t think that MSFT is unhappy with the affiliate model, rather it’s most probably a rebranding strategy (Bing it, you’ll see)…
Office Live was pretty much MSFT’s first foray into SaaS cloud computing targeting small and medium businesses that were (for the most part) already exploring online tools like Google Docs.
Did anyone make any coin referring visitors to Microsoft Office Live? They’re paying $1 per registration for their service – but only until June 30th!
Here’s the official news:
From: Microsoft Office Live [mailto:owner-membermessaging@mx6.cj.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:31 PM
Subject: Microsoft Office Live affiliate program to close 6/30/09Robin Majumdar,
We’re writing to let you know that the Microsoft Office Live Small Business affiliate program will be closing 6/30/09.
We appreciate all of the time and effort that you put into promoting the program and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at aerreca@cj.com or 805.730.8377.
Sincerely,
The Microsoft Office Live Affiliate Team
Adrienne Erreca | Sr. Program Manager
Commission Junction | a Valueclick Company
Tags: Adrienne Erreca, affiliate programs, Microsoft Office Live, Monetization, Web 2.0
13 Jan 09 US Search affiliate program leaves LinkShare for Commission Junction
I’ve been keeping track of advertisers who manage their affiliate programs through the various networks such as Google Affiliate Network, Commission Junction and LinkShare amongst others and we just received official notice from Amy Harrin that the venerable online background investigation company US Search is moving from Linkshare to Commission Junction effective January 15th… (this Thursday!)… Amy is the dedicated affiliate manager at US Search.
US Search is pretty one of the top tier online services to do background checks (from about $5 per search, depending how much detail you are looking for) on people – it’s pretty popular amongst people wanting to check out potential dates on the online social networking and dating sites.
We manage programs under both CJ and LinkShare and I highly prefer CJ – for the unique and simple reason that the user interface on Linkshare (parent company Rakuten) is consistenly sluggish and slow and a bit too annoying to easily navigate. That being said, Linkshare has a very high quality roster of advertisers and you simply cannot ignore them in your monetization strategy. Just be ready to sit waiting for report updates (in Flash) to generate. It’s not that CJ is that much better – but faster enough to merit more frequent visits to check on performance reports.
So US Search will be live on CJ as of January 15th – here’s the official notice all US Search Linkshare partners received:
(more…)
Tags: affiliate programs, Amy Harrin, Commission Junction, LinkShare, Monetization, US Search
20 Sep 08 AIG Direct suspends their affiliate program on Commission Junction … temporarily …hopefully
AIG Direct suspends their affiliate program on Commission Junction … temporarily …hopefully
Received this early Friday morning from Dan Fink, Affiliate Directory for AIG – AIGdirect.com – which is run through the Commission Junction affiliate network.
It sure has been a tough week for the financial sector – including AIG, as I briefly noted in that 7 figure government bail-out package for AIG. Perhaps that’s why Mr. Fink is mentioning that the affiliate program suspension is only for the next 7 days…
Tags: affiliate programs, AIG Insurance bailout, Marketing, Monetization
25 Apr 08 New eBay Partner Network customer support system loses customer questions – growing pains
Well, after many years of managing the various eBay affiliate programs through Commission Junction, I was one of the first to migrate campaigns over to their new in-house eBay Partner Network at the beginning of the month.
I’ll write an indepth analysis after a couple more weeks of usage, but thus far it’s been working relatively smoothly although eCPM and CTR numbers seem to be somewhat lower than back on the CJ eBay program (which is still running in parallel until the end of the month) … Mind you, the lower performance probably has nothing to do with tracking issues, and more with the cyclical nature of the sites on which some of these campaigns are running. Over at AuctionAds ShoppingAds, which provides the now famous user friendly widget creation system, April was the best month in terms of $ revenue in the last few months.
I just received this notice from the eBay Partner Network:
From: eBay Partner Network Customer Support [mailto:noreply@ebaypartnernetwork.com]
Sent: April 25, 2008 5:10 PM
To: ***************
Subject: Customer Support messaging issues on 4/22 and 4/23Our Customer Support system experienced issues on Tuesday, 4/22 and Wednesday, 4/23.
If you submitted a question on those days, our system might not have logged it. Please resubmit your inquiry to ensure a prompt follow up.Our apologies for the inconvenience,
The eBay Partner Network team
OK, so their service desk software is having a few glitches… no worries guys. Migrating such a complex affiliate program over from a third-party provider to your in-house system is one major project!
Hopefully my eCPM numbers will go up soon on the new EPN 
Tags: Affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate programs, eBay affiliate program, eBay Partner Network, Monetization, ppc
