Linkshare

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LinkShare Corporation
Type Private
Founded New York, New York (1996)
Headquarters New York, New York
Key people John Kim, Chairman
Stephen Denton, President
Jonathan Levine, CTO
Industry Affiliate marketing
Products Affiliate network
Website LinkShare.com

LinkShare Corporation is a provider of technology solutions to track, manage, and analyze the performance of sales, marketing, and business development initiatives.

Linkshare boasts that it has created the largest network of affiliate partners of any program provider -- over 10 million partnerships -- in addition to becoming the first affiliate network provider to achieve sustained profitability. Linkshare also lays claim to being a pioneer in online affiliate marketing. The Linkshare network is touted by the company as the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet [1].

LinkShare clients are Fortune 500 and prominent companies doing business online, and include J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express, Avon Products and many others.

Contents

[edit] History

The LinkShare Corporation (LinkShare) was founded in 1996 by Stephen Messer and Heidi Messer and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and London, UK.

[edit] Ownership

LinkShare Corporation is the wholly owned U.S. division of Rakuten, Inc., a top Japanese shopping portal.[2] Rakuten acquired LinkShare in 2005 for $425 Million in cash.[3]

[edit] Services

LinkShare offers a number of services to online merchants. The primary services are:

  • LinkShare Affiliate Marketing Network - Affiliate Program Management and Tracking platform which uses Linkshare's patented non cookie-based tracking technology
  • LinkShare Search Advantage, which includes Paid Placement, Paid Inclusion and Search Affiliate Management Services
  • LinkShare MediaTracker, which provides tracking and reporting beyond affiliate marketing, including email campaigns and display advertising campaigns
  • LinkShare Lead Advantage, a Lead Generation solution which offers Advertisers looking for customer leads LinkShare technology and services

[edit] Dynamic Rich Media

Dynamic Rich Media or short DRM is a term used by Linkshare to describe one of their Ad Formats, which is in essence a rich media Ad (such as Flash). Any changes made to the Ad by the advertiser via the Linkshare interface will automatically change the Ad on all publisher web sites as well, without the need for the publisher (Affiliate) to change anything on their end.

[edit] LinkShare events

[edit] LinkShare Symposium

Annual symposium with educational seminars for advertisers and publishers of the LinkShare affiliate network. The event is open to the public and is being held every year in June in New York City. The event used to be held more than once per year. The LinkShare Symposium 2007 event was the 14th installment of the conference.

The event includes keynote speeches, educational seminars, networking events like LinkShare DealMaker to provide the opportunity for online partners to meet face-to-face and the annual LinkShare Golden Link Awards ceremony.

[edit] LinkShare Partnership Summit

The LinkShare Partnership Summit is an annual conference with educational seminars and roundtable discussions for advertisers and publishers of the LinkShare affiliate network. The event is not open to the public and per invitation only.

[edit] LinkShare UK Partnermaker

This event is the counterpart of the LinkShare Symposium for British advertisers and publishers of the LinkShare affiliate network. The event is being held annually in London, GB.

[edit] LinkShare — Golden Link Awards

LinkShare hosts the annual Golden Link Awards ceremony during the annual LinkShare Symposium conference, to celebrate extraordinary achievements in performance-based marketing. The award is given to companies and individuals for the following award categories:

  • Most Innovative Affiliate of the Year
  • Most Innovative Merchant of the Year
  • Best New Affiliate
  • Best New Merchant
  • Affiliate's Choice Award
  • Merchant's Choice Award
  • International Achievement Award
  • Best Performance-Based Search Strategy
  • Best Online Merchandising Campaign
  • Best Integrated Online-Offline Marketing
  • Best Overall Online Distribution Strategy
  • Performance Marketing's Most Vocal Advocate
Awards history and rules

The awards ceremony for the LinkShare Golden Links Awards was held for the first time in 2004 in New York City, NY, during the LinkShare Symposium 2004. Only LinkShare merchants and affiliates in good standing are eligible to become nominated for the awards. Nominations can be made by anybody who is eligle via a public nomination form. The winners will be determined by the E-commerce Council, which consists of representatives of the LinkShare network, LinkShare merchant and affiliate partners, representatives from the affiliate community and other distinguished industry professionals.

Awards winners per year: 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007

[edit] The Titanium Award

Every quarter LinkShare Club awards a $15,000 cash prize to the one affiliate who outperforms everyone else. The winning affiliate supports the most merchants, at the highest level and drives the greatest percentage increase in revenue.

[edit] Company Website

[edit] References

  1. ^ Derek Vaughan (July 12, 2005),Make Money From Your Content Site, Sitepoint.com, retrieved August 12, 2007
  2. ^ Top Japanese Shopping Portals - Alexa Ranking
  3. ^ Bloomberg (September 6, 2005),Rakuten Agrees to Acquire LinkShare for $425 Million, Bloomberg.com, retrieved August 12, 2007

[edit] Major Competitors

[edit] See also