Rakuten Buys CauseLoyalty.com

September 5, 2007 Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Editorials — Kellie AFP @ 5:05 am

Rakuten USA, the US division of the Japan headquartered Rakuten, has purchased CauseLoyalty.com. Shaking the corporation tree for those who aren’t aware, Rakuten USA owns LinkShare and CauseLoyalty owns SchoolPop and OneCause.

Another affiliate has been bought by a company which also owns a major Affiliate Network. This is the second such acquisition by LinkShare. In June of this year, LinkShare acquired TrafficStrategies.com. ValueClick has made similar acquisitions, most notably the purchase of PriceRunner and MeziMedia. Performics is being bought by Google (ok that one isn’t an affiliate but there is AdSense and Google moving into the CPA arena). ThinkPartnership owns KowaBunga, SecondBite (an affiliate with access to merchant’s shopping carts and customer contact information) and PrimaryAds. (more…)