Performance marketing company MediaWhiz has snatched up eBay affiliate marketing service AuctionAds, which launched back in March. The price was not disclosed. AuctionAds is an advertising widget that serves contextually relevant eBay auctions based on tags supplied by the publisher.
MediaWhiz had previously purchased another sensibly named advertising startup, TextLinkAds, last November (TextLinkAds is a long time TechCrunch sponsor). Since the acquisition TextLinkAds expanded into RSS ads on top of direct website linking.
AuctionAds has been paying out 100% of eBay affiliate fees to publishers. Since eBay pays fees based on the total business a partner drives, AuctionAds can generate their own additional revenue from a combined network while still paying out the same rates affiliates would receive on their own. Since launch, they have registered over 20,000 publishers on their network.
Similar services to AuctionAds include BooBox and FavoriteThingz.
AuctionAds was launched as a partnership between Shoemoney Media and MediaWhiz. MediaWhiz has purchased Jeremy Schoemaker’s majority ownership to fully acquire the company.
Here’s another tool that launches today for bloggers and other website owners looking for different ways to monetize their site: AuctionAds. Like booBox and other services, website publishers create an account, add descriptive tags relevant to their content, and place an embed code on their site. The AuctionAds widget will then show eBay auctions relevant to the tags. See their demo page for more information.
AuctionAds says they’ll pass 100% of eBay affiliate fees (paid on new eBay user registrations and a percentage of sales) on to publishers for an interim period. Since eBay pays sliding fees based on the total business generated by the affiliate (which in this case is AuctionAds), eventually AuctionAds will be able to skim some fees off the top while still promising to pay sites at least as much as they’d earn as a direct affiliate. See this page for current eBay affiliate fees.
It’s a good idea, although it isn’t clear if site owners would be better off with AuctionAds v. using the screen real estate for Google ads or other advertisements. I’m sure some sites will be testing this and will publicize their results (we’re considering it for CrunchGear and MobileCrunch).
The service is majority owned by ShoeMoney Media, which recently waged a PR battle against MyBlogLog. MediaWhiz is also a partial owner (disclosure: TextLinkAds, which is owned by MediaWhiz, is a TechCrunch Sponsor).
