By Allan Maurer
CARY, NC – How does a company differentiate itself from numerous competitors in the online world? Bring something new to the table. Affiliate relationships make money for both merchants and those funneling people to their online stores, but controlling a brand can be a problem and so can fraud. Cary-based LinkConnector addresses both problems directly.
Ernie St. Gelais, co-president & CTO, speaking at Affiliate Summit East.
Founded in 2004 by Choots Humphries and Ernie St. Gelais, the now co-presidents initially funded the venture with money from the sale of a previous company, IRS.com. LinkConnector has since raised a total of about $8 million and expects to close a new round of equity of about $1 million soon.
The two had used other networks such as Commission Junction and Link Share with IRS.com, but felt they could improve upon their limitations. So they built LinkConnector to do just that. It’s one of the surest methods we know of building a successful new company: solve problems you encounter yourself.
LinkConnector has been successful, too, says Jackie Bates, director of marketing for the company. “The company increased its revenue by 90 percent over the last five years,” she says. It has 15 of the top Internet retailer Fortune 500 companies among its customers and is one of the fastest growing affiliate networks, especially with larger players.
More Fortune 500 retailers
“We have more of them than most other networks,” says Bates.
She says one of the differences between LinkConnector and its competitors is its “naked link” technology that allows direct linking of affiliates to merchant partners without long, convoluted tracking urls. The short, clean urls used by LinkConnector allow the merchants to gain inbound link credit from their partner referrals, boosting their search engine optimization efforts.
The company’s technology also makes an affiliate site look “more editorial,” another aid to SEO.
It works via a snippet of code on the merchant site that checks to make sure the user comes from a valid affiliate partner, then writes a cookie.
Tara McCommons, director of sales, left, and Jackie Bates, director of marketing at a trade show
A different approach to fraud
“We’re also different in our approach to fraud,” says Bates. “We have zero tolerance for fraud and use five technologies to back that up.”
The company screens every affiliate applicant up front with “A plethora of criteria they have to meet,” says Bates. “We decline a significant percentage, half or more.” That provides quality affiliates rather than quantity, but fights the fraud so prevalent in the industry.
Once accepted, however, the company treats affiliates as partners, assisting them in finding the right match for their traffic. It has created an Affiliate Relations department that allows LinkConnector to offer its affiliates representation similar to the way its merchants are represented, a significant difference from its competitors.
It also offers a much different pricing model than its competitors by not charging separate fees for individual services to a merchant for operating their affiliate program. LinkConnector makes money when a merchant makes money.
Online: www.linkconnector.com
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