Earlier today LinkShare’s Senior Vice President, Kelli Beougher, announced in the affiliate network’s official blog that due to “a few mutual differences” that cannot be overcome, “LinkShare has resigned as Overstock.com’s affiliate network provider.” [source] No further explanation has been given, and the real causes of this breakup remain unclear.
What makes things even more interesting is the fact that the “Become an Affiliate” link on Overstock.com’s own website leads to a page that at the moment of this post (several hours after the above-quoted LinkShare’s announcement) looks like this:
The two “Join Now” buttons are linked to the cli.linksynergy.com registration page, which is still active (i.e. you can still sign up with the Overstock.com’s affiliate program on LinkShare), and LinkShare’s logo is still prominently displayed on Overstock’s affiliate sign up page. As my grandmother would’ve put it, “it is a mystery wrapped in a dusk.”
I wonder if Overstock.com affiliates have received any notifications of the further “transition” (the word used in LinkShare’s blog) of this affiliate program, and what awaits them in the near future.
Good post with some insight into the subject by my friend, Angel Djambazov: Overstock and LinkShare Part Ways: Insights into the Split.
Geno, I’m an Overstock affiliate, and I have not received any notifications regarding the transition. What I have received tho is a New Coupons & Sales newsletter where Overstock lists several coupons and sales that will go on throught the end of this month, and all of my affiliate links in the newsletter are coded through the usual Linkshare links.
Any idea on when exactly the Linkshare program is going to be closed?
Jeremy,
Thank you for your comment. Very interesting.
What is even more interesting is that the LinkShare announcement that I’ve linked to is now gone. Thankfully, I take screenshots of important stuff. So here’s how it looked:
I guess not all parties are ready for the move just yet (or, at least, not for the announcement). But it is somewhat too late (with my blog post, the above-quoted Angel’s post at Revenews, Trust’s post at ABestWeb). The genie is already out of the bottle.
@Trust has just posted at ABestWeb that Overstock.com’s affiliate program is being migrated to CommissionJuction.
Thanks for your e-mail, Geno. Yes, I got the e-mail from Marianne Barnes (the affiliate marketing manager at Overstock). Here’s the full text about the move:
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT – ACTION WILL BE REQUIRED:
We are delighted to announce that the Overstock.com Affiliate Program will be transitioned from the LinkShare network to the Commission Junction network. As many of you are aware, we have had a long and mutually successful partnership with LinkShare, but feel at this time it is in the best interest of our Affiliate Program to make this change. We look forward to and appreciate both networks’ commitment to ensuring that it is a smooth process for our publishers. The transition to Commission Junction will begin within the next three to four weeks.
Further details regarding our migration plan will be forthcoming. In the meantime, we intend to operate the business as usual.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Jeremy,
I appreciate it.
I see people coming to this blogpost searching for phrases like “linkshare overstock,” “overstock affiliate program,” etc and it’s certainly good to have the full info here.
Thanks again.
Official announcement posted at 6 AM this morning at BusinessWire.com: Overstock.com Joins the Commission Junction Affiliate Marketing Network.
Pingback: CJ's Valentine's card to Overstock apparently worked » RevenueToday
Pingback: CJ’s Valentine’s card to Overstock apparently worked » RevenueToday
Really odd…Overstock’s affiliate page sending you to Linkshare is still up??? If you google Overstock affiliate the page (http://www.overstock.com/aff_eduHome.html)comes up and directs you to linkshare. If you however go to the affiliate link on their website it signs you up through commision junction. Very Poor website management on Overstocks part. They should pull that other page from their servers 🙁
I just signed up for linkshare and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what was wrong.
Mike,
Sorry to hear about you signing up with a program that’s in reality being moved to a different affiliate netowork. This is odd that they have the LS link on that /aff_eduHome.html page. I have just e-mailed them a link to the above comment of yours.
You should clear your cache we have been linking to CJ since Friday.
Travis,
Thanks for chiming in. The “Join Now” button on http://www.overstock.com/aff_eduHome.html is still linking to https://cli.linksynergy.com/cli/publisher/registration/registration.php
http://www.overstock.com/aff_eduHome.html is a dead page so we are going to redirect
for the future anyone with questions about our program should go to this link
http://www.overstock.com/20789/static.html?
Thanks
Hi
The new Overstock.com affiliate program is getting much better now it’s over with Cj.com in my opinion. We seem to be seeing more sales through CJ.com than we did with Linkshare.
We have now updated the phpOStock Plugin to be fully compatible with the Overstock affiliate program.
Cheers
Ben