Jangro.com Social Media, Affiliate Marketing, etc. Heavy on the etc.

Those are the incredulous words of an old friend at CJ. (I don’t think I’m giving him/her away with that quote. They’re in Southern Cal. They all talk like that.)

and yes…another entry about the Link Managment Initiative. It’s that important.

Like David Lewis wrote recently, I have also been taking a vocal wait-and-see approach to Commission Junction’s announcement about their impending change to JavaScript links. I didn’t and still don’t buy into the theories that CJ has plans to eliminate the small affiliates, or the affiliate model entirely for that matter, by changing all affiliate links over to CJ-controlled billboards and banners.

All I need to do is look at this from a technical standpoint, and I don’t like it. I’m trying to envision without having all the technical details (what’s the hold up there?), how I am going to re-tool my business that relies so heavily on database integration, and full-control over the HTML that gets presented on my web sites. Even if they allow me workarounds to get that control, it still feels like it will require just that, workarounds and hacks, where a simple anchor tag is exactly what is required for the job.

Again, like David, I’d been encouraged by the promise of additional information to be made available last week. It didn’t come. No offense to Frank and Brian, but the podcast didn’t count for much.

I haven’t turned all activist or anything. I was up last Thursday night thinking about the issue and wondering if the higher-ups at Valueclick are also losing sleep over this and if they really understand what it means to convert over to JavaScript. The people I talk to seem to understand the difficulty. But are the publisher-facing teams really able to convey the message back to management? Or is it getting lost in translation? Or have they given up the fight and just absorbing the blows? So then, let’s bypass that and get the feedback out there in a concise manner where everybody can see. Thus, the petition.

There must be a division over this issue within Valueclick. Somebody or something is driving this change. There’s a problem in corporations when the people who are paying the salaries are the ones with the strong opinion about something. It can be difficult for the people on the other side to balance asserting their own opinions and keeping their jobs. I know there are some who see that this has potential to be a disaster. But it’s just a job. It’s sometimes not worth it to keep up a fight.

I know, as do many, many other people, that there’s something fundamentally wrong with a complete change to javascript links in affiliate marketing. So therefore, I thought it might be worthwhile to create something that cannot be ignored, a petition. Over 100, as of this writing, mostly level-headed statements from real people with real names is a pretty strong message and cannot all be dismissed as rants. I think this needs even more from the people who don’t normally speak out on message boards and blogs.

I’m probably a pretty unpopular guy in some parts of CJ right now, and I do not at all like the thought of that. And I truly regret the prospect that I’m shining a light on something that may make life more difficult for some people there, many of whom I count as good friends.

But I’m hoping they’ll get past that and take a good look at this information that they probably didn’t have before and re-evaluate the impact that this will have on all of our businesses. Is this truly the right solution to whatever problem it is that they’re facing?

This is important. Merchants and Affiliates, Advertisers and Publishers,
whatever you call yourself, Sign the Petition.