My thoughts on the “CJ on sale” rumour
Is CJ really on sale? The way the rumour mill is abuzz, seems like it. Somehow these news items almost always seem to find their way out a few days before something actually happens (see how Google’s plans to buy YouTube was discussed at much length before the D-day?). Beth Kirsch wrote a fairly long piece on the rumour that ValueClick is trying to sell off its affiliate marketing business (CJ). In a related post, Peter Figureredo mentioned that ValueClick investors are concerned with Google’s (on-off-on) plans with the CPA model.
I am not sure why ValueClick would really want to let go of the CJ property. True there are risks associated with the model and the dynamics of the search marketing industry, but I’d have thought that having affiliate marketing under its portfolio is an asset (the “one-stop-shop” pitch… ).
Nevertheless, a lot of talk has centered around Yahoo or MSN buying the CJ business if it was really on offer, mainly to counter any threat from Google in this area. Are we looking too narrowly here? My gut feeling is that any one of the European players (Zanox? TradeDoubler?) could be interested– they have the expertise and the people to run the business effectively. For that matter, how about Rakuten buying CJ ? I am inclined to believe that if CJ were to be sold, it will be bought by another player with an existing footprint in the affiliate marketing arena. Or, then…. it could be Google..:).
