I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the following press release come across my Google Alerts:

“LinkShare, Leading Pay-Per-Action Marketing Network, Acquires Online Lead Generation Firm TrafficStrategies.com.”

Traffic Strategies is well-known in the affiliate community as a leading super affiliate. We’ve worked closely with them on many of the affiliate programs managed by Pepperjam (On Linkshare and elsewhere.) In fact, I can remember just a year or two ago attending a private dinner held by Yahoo for top search-engine marketing super affiliates - Pepperjam was there and so were about 10 other top SEM affiliates who spend millions per year on affiliate marketing search arbitrage, including Traffic Strategies.

Let me first congratulate Mark McClure (President) and his father Bill (Chairman), both of whom I’ve had the opportunity to network with over the years. Mark is a very bright, motivated young entreprenuer and his father is a seasoned business pro having sold numerous businesses prior to Traffic Strategies.

Why was I surprised by the Linkshare acquisition? It’s simple - TrafficStrategies.com is an affiliate marketer, which now makes Linkshare the owner of one of the industry’s leading search-engine marketing super affiliates. I’m not trying to spread a rumor, but the buyout has potential conflict of interest written all over it.

Most recently, rumors were flying and controversy ensued when several Commission Junction affiliate managers, who were acting as part-time super affiliates on the side, were asked by Commission Junction to either stop affiliate marketing or resign from Commission Junction - rumor has it that many of the employees quit.

Linkshare has always had a stellar reputation as it relates to business ethics - it’s no wonder why they have some of the most well-known brands in e-commerce. However, I’m a bit shocked that they would purchase a pure pay-for-performance affiliate marketer. Does this mean that other top affiliate marketers such as Vinny Lingham’s Clicks2Customers or Jeremy Palmer’s Quit Your Day Job may also be viable affiliate marketing buyout candidates?

It’s been a long-time coming that pure affiliate marketing busiess models are recognized as powerful and sustainable businesses. Affiliate marketing search arbitrage is a real business and in TrafficStrategies.com Linkshare just acquired one of the top affiliate marketing search arbitragers in the United States.

Maybe the buyout is a sign that CPA Networks such as Azoogle are stealing too much market share and therefore the traditional idea of “affiliate network acting as affiliate presents a conflict of interest” is being replaced with the reality that “only the most nimble and aggressive will survive.”

My friends, the days of the BIG THREE are behind us - the days of super affiliates like Traffic Strategies, Clicks2Customers, and others creating meaningful and profitable businesses have just begun.

Expect more partnerships and acquisitions in this space and let’s make a deal that next time we won’t fall out of our seats when we here the news.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.