eBay Enterprise Marketing Acquires AffiliateTraction, Expands Programmatic

eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions will announce Monday the acquisition of AffiliateTraction to strengthen its hold on performance marketing and build out programmatic tools to support its affiliate marketing network.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions CEO Michael Jones did reveal that the company’s focus is now turning to integrating technologies from AffiliateTraction, and Digital Net Agency, another recent acquisition in the past few months.

Jones says the AffiliateTraction acquisition will increase the “size of the business by more than 30%,” with operating expenses expected to rise “not more than 10%.”

AffiliateTraction’s technology manages affiliate programs through a set of tools — a feature that Jones calls “unique.” The software recommends the affiliates with which a retailer should work, and automates attribution and commissions by calculating the amount they should pay each affiliate.

The platform informs publishers about the best advertising partners by bringing in raw data about the retailer’s site traffic to determine characteristics such as the number of influencers who frequent the site.

The data serves up profiles of the traffic that might alert affiliates when they have better traffic than what they get credit for receiving. Or the merchant could make decisions on attribution that may not line up with what the traffic is worth.

Tom Barr, e-commerce director at MonkeySports, runs its affiliate program through AffiliateTraction on blogger sites to UPS.com. MonkeySports has become one in about 500 new clients to eBay Enterprise through the acquisition. The company, which sells hockey, baseball and lacrosse equipment online and offline, had been shifting some of its business to eBay Enterprise prior.

“The investment in affiliate marketing for us is between 1% and 2% of total sales,” Barr says. “The return is very good because we set the commission and AffiliateTraction has a fixed management fee.”

For each $1 MonkeySports invests the company gets back about $15, Barr says. MonkeySports also runs search advertising on engines, shopping ads, retargeting, and email marketing, 

Aside from the technology and dedicated clients, eBay Enterprise Marketing gains tons of data, about 100 employees, and an easier route to take its affiliate program global. 

While eBay Enterprise Marketing has a small operation in Europe, Greg Shepard, AffiliateTraction founder, who joins the company as chief strategy officer, says it puts “boots on the ground” for eBay Marketing Solutions in London, Toronto, Canada; Sydney Australia; and Santa Cruz, California.

The global position gives it a strong position to compete against affiliate programs rivals such as Conversant’s CJ Affiliate, and Rakuten Marketing’s LinkShare.

eBay Enterprise Marketing Acquires AffiliateTraction, Expands Programmatic

ChannelAdvisor plans to discontinue an eBay management tool

The vendor’s MarketplaceAdvisor Standard mainly served merchants who only sell on eBay.

Online marketplaces are like stocks, which means retailers should diversify the channels they sell on, says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which helps retailers sell via web marketplaces like those operated by eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

“Today eBay is lagging and Amazon is doing well,” he says. “But chances are that won’t last, so you need to broaden your portfolio to reduce your risk.”

The vendor has adopted that approach over the last few years, which is why it plans to eliminate one of its older products, MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, which was mainly used by merchants who only sell on eBay.

ChannelAdvisor acquired MarketplaceAdvisor Standard, then known as Marketworks, in 2007. Even at the time of the acquisition, Wingo emphasized the difference between the two companies—Marketworks’ business was primarily serving eBay sellers, while ChannelAdvisor focused on helping larger retailers sell across a number of channels. Roughly eight years later, ChannelAdvisor decided it no longer made sense to support sellers who just focus on eBay, says a ChannelAdvisor spokesman. “This single-channel solution is no longer a fit for our platform,” he says.

The move comes amid growing evidence that eBay consistently is trailing the growth rate in online retailing.

ChannelAdvisor Corp. last week reported that e-commerce sales for its clients via eBay’s marketplace grew 7.3% in March, up from February’s 5.1% growth rate. That growth was far below Amazon’s 24.6% growth rate for ChannelAdvisor clients selling on the Amazon Marketplace, which jumped from 22.7% in February. EBay’s growth rate was also just over half of e-commerce’s roughly 15% growth rate during the past year. And another report, by Robert W. Baird and Co., found that eBay’s marketplace sales grew 2% to 3% in March, slightly below its February growth levels.

ChannelAdvisor says that as of July 15, eBay sellers will be unable to list items via MarketplaceAdvisor and that it plans to disable storefronts on Aug. 17. It will shutter all access to data on Sept. 14.

ChannelAdvisor plans to discontinue an eBay management tool