Commission Junction home page Select Country
News & Events Press Releases Commission Junction Shows Continued Growth in 2000 & Beyond

Revenue, Transactions & Client Base Increase; Profitability Targeted In Q4 2001

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – April 24, 2001 – Commission Junction, the leading affiliate marketing solution provider, today announced strong operating results for the six months and year ending Dec. 31, 2000. Commission Junction achieved growth in revenue, transactions and customers, and has continued to roll out new products that give its clients the best affiliate marketing tools and technology available.

Strong Metrics Growth

Commission Junction achieved impressive growth in each of its key business metrics in 2000:
  • Total revenue for 2000 was $5.26 million. Revenue rose from $1.3 million in the first half of the year to $3.9 million in the second half of 2000, a 198% increase.
  • Affiliates earned $23.8 million in commissions in 2000. From July-December, 2000, affiliates earned $17.6 million, up 188% from $6.1 million earned in the first half of 2000.
  • Overall, Commission Junction generated more than 15 billion impressions (the number of times merchants' ads or links were viewed on Commission Junction's affiliate sites) in 2000. Impressions for the second half of the year were 12 billion, an increase of 293% from the first half of 2000.
  • The total number of merchants in the network grew from 980 on June 30, 2000 to 1,756 on Dec. 31, 2000, a jump of 79%.
  • The number of Commission Junction affiliates totaled 366,706 as of Dec. 31, 2000.
  • Commission Junction's network affiliations (the number of merchant and affiliate partnerships) topped 6.5 million at the end of 2000.
  • The click-through rate for the Commission Junction network at the end of 2000 stood at 2.5 percent, more than eight times more effective than the estimated 0.3 percent click-through rate for traditional banner ads.
  • Commission Junction finished 2000 with an outstanding 4.1 percent conversion rate.
Product and Service Rollouts

Commission Junction rolled out three new services in the second half of 2000 - Power Launch, SmartRewards and the BIG Catalog.

Power Launch is a premium service that provides a dedicated account executive to design, implement and monitor the first 90 days of a merchant's program. With expert knowledge of the Commission Junction network and Internet industries, the account executive will optimize an affiliate program to meet the merchant's business goals.

Another enhancement to Commission Junction's offerings is SmartRewards, an advanced tracking technology that allows affiliates to establish programs that reward visitors by providing them with loyalty points and other reward incentives. Commission Junction affiliates currently using SmartRewards include SchoolPop, Greater Good, MyPoints and Ebates.

The BIG Catalog is an online database of more than 1 million products from hundreds of leading online merchants. Offering complete details on every product, the BIG Catalog functions as a centralized repository where online merchants can quickly and easily load their products and offers.

International Growth

Continuing to expand its international reach, Commission Junction opened additional offices in Europe and Asia in 2000. Now, in addition to the Amsterdam and Hong Kong offices, Commission Junction is bringing affiliate marketing to the UK and Ireland through a London sales office, to Southern Europe with a sales office in Paris, and to Japan with an office in Tokyo. Because Commission Junction is an Application Service Provider (ASP), it has the ability to access international markets in a very cost-effective manner. At the end of 2000, Commission's Junction global network boasted 190 international merchants, and 120,000 international affiliates.

Network Growth

Excite@Home broadband service joined the Commission Junction network as its 1,000th merchant in the third quarter of 2000. Commission Junction reached the industry-leading 1,000-merchant mark in less than two years.

Top merchants who joined the Commission Junction network in the second half of 2000 include Citysearch.com, The Museum Company, The Sports Authority, Oshman's, and Kragen Auto Parts online store PartsAmerica.com.

Affiliate growth continued to be strong in 2000, growing 260% from the previous year. At the end of 2000, the Commission Junction network totaled 366,706 affiliates, up from the 1999 year-end total of 78,421.

Looking Ahead

With the marketplace's growing dissatisfaction with the CPM advertising model, CEO Lex Sisney expects Commission Junction's pay-for-performance model to emerge as the solution of choice.

"Commission Junction is transforming affiliate marketing into an accountable online advertising model," added Sisney. "Merchants generate the most registrations and sales on a pay-for-performance basis while affiliate publishers make the maximum revenue from their audience."

Currently Commission Junction is the largest affiliate marketing network in the world and has achieved the greatest reach of all affiliate marketing solution providers. The Company is continuing to acquire the world's leading merchants and affiliates and implementing advanced technologies to make its customers as successful as possible.

Commission Junction is currently serving more than 6 billion impressions a month, ranking it among the five largest ad networks in the world, and the only one of this size doing it all on a pay-for-performance basis.

Considerable engineering time and capital have been invested in new infrastructure for Commission Junction, with 100 new servers scheduled for deployment over the next two months, along with the opening of another data-center.

Commission Junction has significantly reduced its costs and is targeting profitability for the fourth quarter of 2001.

About Commission Junction
Commission Junction delivers advanced performance-based online marketing solutions that facilitate strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, driving accountable results for each client. By publishing performance metrics on advertisers, publishers, and ads within its network and leveraging its own expertise in online marketing through service, education and promotion, Commission Junction creates an open marketplace of low risk and high reward for its clients. The company serves billions of impressions monthly, ranking it among the largest ad networks in the world. Clients include leading online marketers eBay, MSN®, and USA TODAY. Commission Junction is headquartered in Santa Barbara, Calif., with offices in San Francisco, New York and London.

Copyright © 2008 Commission Junction, Inc.  All rights reserved   |   Contact Us   |   Careers   |   Legal   |   Site Map