eBay Teams With Commission Junction to Launch Affiliate Marketing Program; Online Trading Site Uses Pay-for-Performance Advertising to Broaden Reach & Drive Results

Business Wire, April 18, 2001

Business Editors

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2001

Commission Junction, the leading affiliate marketing solution provider, today announced that eBay(R) (NASDAQ:EBAY) (www.ebay.com), the world's largest online trading community, has launched an affiliate marketing program to drive increased online registrations for its business using Commission Junction's network, technology and service.

The affiliate marketing program allows eBay to advertise on thousands of Web sites across the Internet -- instantly expanding reach, building brand and acquiring customers -- all on a pay-for-performance basis. This results in a more cost-effective marketing campaign and lower customer acquisition costs. eBay pays only for its advertising when the marketing objective of the program is fulfilled and the consumer completes an online registration for its service, for example.

"eBay has quickly established itself as one of the most trusted and recognized brands worldwide," said Lex Sisney, Commission Junction CEO. "We are extremely pleased they have decided to build their online marketing and advertising strategy on the strongest foundation possible. Affiliate marketing is the number one way to be successful online, and Commission Junction has a proven track record of delivering quantifiable results for our clients. We will deliver all this and more for eBay."

"eBay is focusing its online marketing and advertising on initiatives that truly drive results," said Matt Lawrence, eBay's manager of Business Development. "As an Application Service Provider, we believe Commission Junction brings the scale, service and speed our business requires to quickly and easily acquire new customers on an ongoing basis. Their proprietary tracking and reporting technology, full-service account management, global reach, and quantifiable, proven ROI were all important factors in our decision to select Commission Junction."

Commission Junction hosts and manages affiliate marketing applications on behalf of its clients -- allowing its customers to rapidly and cost effectively deploy performance-based marketing programs while avoiding the pain and expense of constantly installing, maintaining and upgrading packaged software. Commission Junction provides a large, established customer network and a centralized infrastructure designed to run applications at high performance and with outstanding reliability -- delivering full-featured affiliate marketing functionality and unlimited, on-the-fly scalability with a monthly cost based solely on the performance of its clients.

Since launching their program on March 3, eBay has acquired more than 11,000 affiliates. eBay's subsidiary company, Half.com, is one of Commission Junction's most successful merchants. Half.com offers a fixed-price, online marketplace to buy and sell high-quality, new and used goods. Their affiliate program with Commission Junction boasts 16,000 affiliates, many of whom have earned thousands of dollars in commissions since the program launched in March 2000.

According to Marissa Gluck of Jupiter Communications, building an affiliate network is an extremely cost-effective way for retail sites to acquire customers with low risk. In addition, Forrester Research predicts 83 percent of online advertising spending will be pure pay-for-performance deals or a hybrid of CPM and performance by 2003.

Affiliates can join the eBay affiliate program at http://www.ebay.com/affiliate.> About Commission Junction

Commission Junction, the leading affiliate marketing solution provider, has transformed complicated affiliate marketing software into an affordable and easy-to-use Web-based service that provides a turn-key solution for managing revenue-sharing relationships.

As an application service provider (ASP), Commission Junction provides a network of more than 1,500 merchants and 400,000 content sites with a comprehensive suite of affiliate marketing, management, recruitment and administrative services delivered on-demand via the Internet. Content sites place products, ads and links directly in and around their content and earn commissions. Online merchants extend their reach, build their brand, drive sales and lower customer acquisition costs all on a pay-for-performance basis.

Commission Junction's network includes leading online merchants Excite@Home (NASDAQ:ATHM), Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch (NASDAQ:TMCS), and Capital One (NYSE:COF), and major content sites Ask Jeeves (NASDAQ:ASKJ) and eUniverse (NASDAQ:EUNI). With a staff of 160, Commission Junction is headquartered in Santa Barbara, with sales offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Oslo, Tokyo and Hong Kong. For additional information, visit www.cj.com or call 800/761-1072.