May 11, 2004

By: Mike Ward
Website: http://www.jamesmartell.com

LinkShare's continues success only makes sense

Affiliate marketer LinkShare has never had a reason to look in the rear-view mirror. LinkShare started the industry, accelerated its development, and left the pretenders in the dust. That’s why LinkShare claims more than 10 million partnerships in its ever-growing and impressive affiliate marketing network.

LinkShare’s continued success only makes sense. After all, the company was granted the patent for its unique affiliate tracking technology, U.S. patent No. 5,991,740 to be sure.

But this patented tracking technology is just one of a long list of reasons why ambitious affiliates just like you team up with LinkShare and its awesome network. And it’s not just any network; LinkShare boasts the largest pay-for-performance affiliate marketing system on the Internet.

Get to the top with patented tracking technology

When LinkShare states that it allows you to partner with about 70% of Fortune 500 companies, you have every reason to be pessimistic. It sounds too good to be true, right? And when LinkShare adds that you can enter these partnerships for free—that’s right, zero cost—your doubt and bewilderment only grow, correct?

But rest assured and with confidence, because both of these statements are true. And thousands of new affiliates are finding this out for themselves each week.

Affiliate marketing is a three-way partnership among affiliates, merchants and a third party, in this case LinkShare. When you, the affiliate website, place ads on your site linking to merchants sites, you put yourself in a position to draw commissions for each transaction that originates from your affiliate site. The fact that LinkShare’s network comprises such successful, well-known companies means that visitors to your affiliate site will be that much more likely to click through these ads. It’s a very simple, very effective business model. That’s the beauty of it.

And then LinkShare ups the affiliate ante. While many third parties only allow affiliate websites to draw commissions when transactions are successfully completed, many LinkShare partnerships extend commissions just for directing traffic and clicks to merchant sites. And with LinkShare’s hundreds of merchant programs available, affiliates can be certain that they’ll find the perfect matches for their websites.

LinkShare technology gives affiliates a number of ways to attract and then send visitors to merchant sites. For example, affiliates can reward their visitors’ loyalty by giving them cash and other incentives for giving business to their partner merchants. Of course, such loyalty is bound to turn into more traffic and more commissions. And once this cycle of increased commissions gets going, there’s just no telling how much you can make.

Also, LinkShare’s patented tracking technology tracks each and every click on its network, and makes this information available to affiliates 24 hours a day so that they can see what partnerships are working and just how much money they’re making. You’ll have six different reports at your disposal to see if you should tweak your affiliate operation. Whether you want to call up a Sales and Activity Report to evaluate the performance of each individual merchant, or you would like to check out a Product Success Report to find out what specific products and services your site visitors are buying at merchant sites, you can do all this and more at the click of your mouse.

Partner with the best

I’ve tossed around the idea that LinkShare has partnered with some of the Web’s most respected companies as merchants. And now it’s time to name names. For starters, how do these sound: OfficeMax, J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, AT&T Corp., American Express, Avon Products and Dell Computer Corporation. When the merchants that you, as an affiliate, are trying to direct your website visitors toward are held in such high esteem and regard, the work almost takes care of itself.

LinkShare’s goal is to pair up affiliates and merchants that are a good match for each other, and through LinkShare’s uniquely designed interface, Merchants can target you and other network affiliates by searching by site category, the date the affiliate joined, the affiliate’s location and more. LinkShare takes the guesswork out of the equation. And when new merchants join the LinkShare network, their details and commission offers will be displayed and highlighted right away for all the affiliates to see.

First out of the gate

In 1996 LinkShare beat other industry aspirants to the punch when it saw the opportunity to bring together affiliates and merchants together into one mutually beneficial, highly profitable network.

Headquartered in New York, LinkShare spans the coasts, and has offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Denver. Leading this finely tuned operation is Chairman and CEO Stephen Messer, whose impressive background includes a past stints as an assistant director for Columbia University Institute of Technology and with the State Department. With such stewardship, it no wonder why LinkShare was the first affiliate marketer to introduce effective, patented tracking technology.

Success can be measured a number of ways, from anecdotes to studies, but when it comes right down to it, money talks. LinkShare’s early breakthroughs led it to become the first in the affiliate marketing industry to meet with sustained profitability—a measure of success that can’t be seconded.

A fast mover

Of course, LinkShare’s reputation of having the most comprehensive affiliate marketing network hasn’t come without recognition. LinkShare was recently awarded the highest ranking in Deloitte & Touche’s Technology Fast 50 program in the New York. And if that wasn’t enough, this is the second year that the honor has been bestowed on LinkShare—marking the first time a company has held the distinction for two consecutive years.

But sometimes it’s individual success stories, and not celebrated accolades, that truly demonstrate the worth of a company. Take Overstock.com, an online retailer looking to give life to its sagging affiliate marketing program. Enter LinkShare, and in just one year, Overstock.com’s affiliate contributed revenue increased from about 5 percent all the way to 15 to 20 percent. Also, the Internet retailer’s total affiliates skyrocketed in number, from 3,500 to 30,000! To call this growth “amazing” is an understatement.

The future is promising for LinkShare. The company will soon be launching a new suite of services to further assist companies manage their affiliate marketing programs. More and more quality merchants and affiliates are joining up with the industry leader. And there’s no sign of this momentum slipping anytime soon.

For more information, visit: LinkShare.com

Related Resources

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