On the heels of Commission Junction’s CJ University event and last week’s apparent, quiet ousting of notorious “bad actor” affiliate ShopatHomeSelect.com I thought it might be interesting to delve deeper into CJ’s network composition as described by itself.  This is of particular interest considering so much of my consulting business reveals so many advertisers continuing to (knowingly or un-knowingly) work with download-lovin’ ShopatHomeSelect.com.

As seen above, Commission Junction itself reports what it calls “Downloads” as representing a small yet significant portion of its publisher base (translation: to some degree, revenue base).  Also worth noting is that it separates out “Downloads” from “Loyalty” which may actually include players like ShopatHomeDirect given its cash-back (to consumers) business model… although largely distributed via downloads.  It is likely that other loyalty players (such as the Almighty uPromise.com and affiliates like MyPoints.com, eBates.com etc.) are similarly categorized as “Loyalty” although Commission Junction has not been very revealing about its categorization criteria.

It’s also important to note that CJ’s network of affiliates, or “publishers” as they call them, relies primarily on search… a service that they, themselves, and their competitors are rushing into (in effect, competing with their base of affiliates).  CJ competitor, Performics has been at this for years now and managed to take affiliate business away from CJ and Linkshare based on their ability to offer “more than affiliate programs.” I’ve written in the past on risks involved for affiliate networks that are dependent on search-based affiliates/publishers. 

Also, I’m interested to understand more about “Acquisition” affiliates as they would seem to be competing with and/or crossing over with other ValueClick holdings… specifically, CPA networks such as WebClients (acquired earlier this year).