CJ Analytics Redux
It has been almost 2 Weeks now since Commission Junction announced on 5/23/2006 their LMI P1 or Link Management Initiative Phase 1 (CJ Account required).It caused quite an uproar in the Affiliate Marketing Community and a lot of debate and speculation. There are still 2 more weeks before Phase I gets actually launched on 6/23, but a lot of stuff did happen already which made me decide to write a summary and my opinion why CJ is doing this.I will be proven wrong or right in the months to come. In either case, it will be an interesting time and there is a lot of pain to come. The overall effects of that can not be estimated, but no matter how it develops, it will have a lasting effect for the years to come.The CJ stated “The Link Management Initiative (LMI) was conceived in response to requests from our employees, advertisers and publishers” (“our (CJ) employees”? Is this a typo? shouldn’t it be spelled employer?). I guess this statement was not entirely correct because people had a hard time to find publishers or advertisers that applauded the announcement as something they were looking for and wanted to have.Sudden ImpactThe strongest and loudest criticism and rant came from the CJ Publishers (Affiliates) , because they are affected the most by CJ’s announcement.It was not all just screaming and yelling which a lot of marketing professionals consider a common trait of especially smaller publishers, when it comes to changes in this industry.[…]