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69-544: DoubleClick Inc. was an American advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primarily to advertising agencies and mass media , serving businesses like Microsoft , General Motors , Coca-Cola , Motorola , L'Oréal , Palm, Inc. , Apple Inc. , Visa Inc. , Nike, Inc. , and Carlsberg Group . The company's main product line

138-584: A blind network , is such that advertisers place ads, but do not know the exact places where their ads are being placed. There are several criteria for categorizing advertising networks. In particular, the company's business strategy , as well as the quality of the networks' traffic and volume of inventory can serve as bases for categorization. Online advertising networks can be divided into three groups based on how they work with advertisers and publishers: Ad networks can also be divided into first-tier and second-tier networks. First-tier advertising networks have

207-600: A merchant . This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process . It is a form of performance-based marketing where the commission acts as an incentive for the affiliate; this commission is usually a percentage of the price of the product being sold, but can also be a flat rate per referral. Affiliate marketers may use a variety of methods to generate these sales, including organic search engine optimization , paid search engine marketing , e-mail marketing , content marketing , display advertising , organic social media marketing , and more. Though

276-719: A book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely known and serve as a model for subsequent programs. In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent on components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others. Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as

345-429: A commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding objectives. Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department. The phrase, "Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business", which

414-481: A compensation method, nineteen percent use cost per action (CPA), and the remaining programs use other methods such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM, cost per estimated 1000 views). Within more mature markets, less than one percent of traditional affiliate marketing programs today use cost per click and cost per mille . However, these compensation methods are used heavily in display advertising and paid search . Cost per mille requires only that

483-419: A good commission when one matches the criteria, and the publisher is allowed to display and share ads provided by the platform earns a good revenue . Getting approved as a publisher of the best advertising platform is a thorough process. Websites with a clean interface , more traffic and engagements are preferred to be selected as ad network publishers by the advertising platforms. The first central ad server

552-417: A hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms, publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts publishers "B" and "C" to sign up for the same program using his sign-up code, all future activities performed by publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional commission (at

621-431: A large amount of mostly computer-generated duplicate content from its index . Websites consisting mostly of affiliate links have previously held a negative reputation for underdelivering quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google, where certain websites were labeled as "thin affiliates". Such websites were either removed from Google's index or were relocated within the results page (i.e., moved from

690-403: A large number of their own advertisers and publishers, they have high quality traffic, and they serve ads and traffic to second-tier networks. Examples of first-tier networks include the major search engines . Second-tier advertising networks may have some of their own advertisers and publishers, but their main source of revenue comes from syndicating ads from other advertising networks. While it

759-482: A link that would take visitors directly to CDNow to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose from conversations with the music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNow if it could design a program where CDNow would handle order fulfillment . Geffen realized that CDNow could link directly from

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828-750: A lower rate) for publisher "A". Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Merchants favor affiliate marketing because in most cases it uses a "pay for performance" model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost). Some merchants run their own (in-house) affiliate programs using dedicated software, while others use third-party intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates. There are two different types of affiliate management methods used by merchants: standalone software or hosted services , typically called affiliate networks. Payouts to affiliates or publishers can be made by

897-427: A malicious website tricked several name-brand websites into serving the ads. In June 2010, Google confirmed its acquisition of Invite Media , a demand-side platform , which it later renamed DoubleClick Bid Manager. On July 24, 2018, the names and logos of all DoubleClick products were updated, and DoubleClick Bid Manager is now 'Display & Video 360' (DV360). Ad serving The advertising network market

966-632: A marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005. MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$ 6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from

1035-405: A medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers. Regardless of the progress made, adware continues to be an issue, as demonstrated by the class action lawsuit against ValueClick and its daughter company Commission Junction filed on April 20, 2007. Affiliates were among the earliest adopters of pay per click advertising when the first pay-per-click search engines emerged during the end of

1104-497: A negative reputation. Some merchants are using outsourced (affiliate) program management (OPM) companies, which are themselves often run by affiliate managers and network program managers . OPM companies perform affiliate program management for the merchants as a service, similar to the role an advertising agencies serves in offline marketing. Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide standards for

1173-513: A settlement agreement where DoubleClick was required to explain its privacy policy in "easy-to-read" language; conduct a public information campaign consisting of 300 million banner ads inviting consumers to learn more about protecting their privacy; and institute data purging and opt-in procedures among other requirements. In 2004, DoubleClick acquired Performics, which offered affiliate marketing , search engine optimization , and search engine marketing products. These products were integrated into

1242-718: A share of the ad revenues or a fee, as well as search engines , mobile, and online video resources. An advertiser can buy a run of network package, or a run of category package within the network. The advertising network serves advertisements from its central ad server , which responds to a site once a page is called. A snippet of code is called from the ad server, that represents the advertising banner. Large publishers often sell only their remnant inventory through ad networks. Typical numbers range from 10% to 60% of total inventory being remnant and sold through advertising networks. Smaller publishers often sell all of their inventory through ad networks. One type of ad network , known as

1311-582: A user's browser to send fake clicks to websites that are supposedly part of legitimate affiliate marketing programs. Typically, users are completely unaware this is happening other than their browser performance slowing down. Websites end up paying for fake traffic numbers, and users are unwitting participants in these ad schemes. As search engines have become more prominent, some affiliate marketers have shifted from sending e-mail spam to creating automatically generated web pages that often contain product data feeds provided by merchants. The goal of such web pages

1380-478: A variety of sources in retail , personal finance , gaming and gambling , travel , telecom , education , publishing , and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs. In 2006, the most active sectors for affiliate marketing were adult gambling, retail industries and file-sharing services. The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone , finance , and travel sectors. Soon after these sectors came

1449-416: A whole slew of third-party extensions available for download. In recent years, there has been a constant rise in the number of malicious browser extensions flooding the web. Malicious browser extensions will often appear to be legitimate as they seem to originate from vendor websites and come with glowing customer reviews. In the case of affiliate marketing, these malicious extensions are often used to redirect

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1518-499: A wide spectrum of ad formats (e.g. banners , native ads ) and platforms (e.g. display , mobile , video ). This is true for most ad networks. However, there also are ad networks that focus on particular kinds of inventory and ads: Video and mobile ad networks can be acquired by larger advertising companies, or operate as standalone entities. Most online ad-network platforms offer website owners and marketers to signup as advertising publishers. Publishers can then display ads shared by

1587-465: Is a large and growing market, with Internet advertising revenues expected to grow from $ 135.42 bn in 2014 to $ 239.87 bn in 2019. Digital advertising revenues in the United States alone are set to reach $ 107.30 bn in 2018 which is an 18.7% increase from 2017 ad spend. This growth will result in many new players in the market and encourage acquisitions of ad networks by larger companies that either enter

1656-568: Is also preserved. FocaLink re-launched the ad server under the name SmartBanner in February 1996. The company was founded by Dave Zinman, Andrew Conru, and Jason Strober, and is based in Palo Alto, California . In 1998, the company changed its name to AdKnowledge and was purchased by CMGI in 1999. The AdKnowledge name was subsequently purchased by a company in Kansas City in 2004, which now operates under

1725-407: Is common for websites to be categorized into tiers, these can be misleading because tier 1 and tier 2 networks might perform differently based on different metrics, such as reach versus impressions. One aspect of ad-serving technology is automated and semi-automated means of optimizing bid prices, placement, targeting, or other characteristics. Significant methods include: Ad networks often support

1794-413: Is not commonly taught in universities, and only a few college instructors work with Internet marketers to introduce the subject to students majoring in marketing. Education occurs most often in "real life" by becoming involved and learning the details as time progresses. Although there are several books on the topic, some so-called "how-to" or " silver bullet " books instruct readers to manipulate holes in

1863-411: Is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not completely accurate. The primary difference between the two is that affiliate marketers provide little if any influence on a possible prospect in the conversion process once that prospect is directed to the advertiser's website. The sales team of the advertiser, however, does have the control and influence up to the point where the prospect either a) signs

1932-454: Is one example where Affiliate Marketing does not overtly resemble the same model in the West. With many affiliates being paid a flat "Cost Per Day" with some networks offering Cost Per Click or CPM. In the case of cost per mille /click, the publisher is not concerned about whether a visitor is a member of the audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert because at this point

2001-678: Is to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, also known as spamdexing . Each page can be targeted to a different niche market through the use of specific keywords, with the result being a skewed form of search engine optimization . Spam is the biggest threat to organic search engines, whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users. Google 's PageRank algorithm update ("BigDaddy") in February 2006—the final stage of Google's major update ("Jagger") that began in mid-summer 2005—specifically targeted spamdexing with great success. This update thus enabled Google to remove

2070-466: The FTC . Guidelines affect celebrity endorsements, advertising language, and blogger compensation. Affiliate marketing currently lacks industry standards for training and certification. There are some training courses and seminars that result in certifications; however, the acceptance of such certifications is mostly due to the reputation of the individual or company issuing the certification. Affiliate marketing

2139-641: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Union . In May 2007, the FTC requested additional information about the deal after it was urged by competitors, including Microsoft , which believed it would give Google too much control over online advertising. On December 20, 2007, the FTC approved Google's purchase of DoubleClick from its owners Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity. European Union regulators approved on March 11, 2008, and Google completed

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2208-740: The Stored Communications Act , the Wiretap Statute , and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act , as it would allow the company to match a person's identity with their online habits, which it tracks through cookies. In February 2000, the FTC announced it had launched an investigation into the matter. The investigation was concluded in January 2001, with the FTC stating that it found no evidence that DoubleClick used or disclosed consumers personal identifying information. DoubleClick eventually entered into

2277-556: The US Supreme Court ruled that the presence of independent sales representatives may allow a state to require sales tax collections. New York determined that affiliates are such independent sales representatives. The New York law became known as "Amazon's law" and was quickly emulated by other states. While that was the first time states successfully addressed the internet tax gap, since 2018 states have been free to assert sales tax jurisdiction over sales to their residents regardless of

2346-400: The publisher make the advertising available on his or her website and display it to the page visitors in order to receive a commission. Pay per click requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher: A visitor must not only be made aware of the advertisement but must also click on the advertisement to visit the advertiser's website. Cost per click

2415-501: The 1990s. Later in 2000 Google launched its pay per click service, Google AdWords , which is responsible for the widespread use and acceptance of pay per click as an advertising channel. An increasing number of merchants engaged in pay per click advertising, either directly or via a search marketing agency, and realized that this space was already occupied by their affiliates. Although this situation alone created advertising channel conflicts and debates between advertisers and affiliates,

2484-591: The Google algorithm , which can quickly become out of date, or suggest strategies no longer endorsed or permitted by advertisers. Outsourced Program Management companies typically combine formal and informal training, providing much of their training through group collaboration and brainstorming . Such companies also try to send each marketing employee to the industry conference of their choice. Other training resources used include online forums, weblogs, podcasts , video seminars, and specialty websites. A code of conduct

2553-428: The acquisition later that day. On April 2, 2008, Google announced it would cut 300 jobs at DoubleClick due to organizational redundancies. Selected employees would be matched within the Google organization as per position and experience. In November 2007, shortly after the announcement of the acquisition, it was reported that DoubleClick had been serving ads designed to trick users into buying malware. This occurred after

2622-600: The advertiser. Relevant websites that attract the same target audiences as the advertiser but without competing with it are potential affiliate partners as well. Vendors or existing customers can also become recruits if doing so makes sense and does not violate any laws or regulations (such as with pyramid schemes ). Almost any website could be recruited as an affiliate publisher, but high traffic websites are more likely interested in (for their sake) low-risk cost per mille or medium-risk cost per click deals rather than higher-risk cost per action or revenue share deals. Since

2691-442: The advertising network and the revenue is shared between both the advertising network and publisher. When the beginners could not pass through the minimum criteria for publishing advertisements, ad placement services could ban the publisher for not fulfilling the requirements. Some networks demand strict terms and conditions while there are other ad publishing alternatives times commissions vary on what sells otherwise user still to earn

2760-444: The affiliate marketing world as well. These platforms allow improved communication between merchants and affiliates. Web 2.0 platforms have also opened affiliate marketing channels to personal bloggers , writers, and independent website owners. Contextual ads allow publishers with lower levels of web traffic to place affiliate ads on websites. Eighty percent of affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or pay per sale (PPS) as

2829-501: The affiliate to send the most closely targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion . The risk is absorbed by the affiliate who funnels their traffic to the campaign (normally a landing page ). In the case a conversion is not fired the publisher won't receive any compensation for the traffic. Affiliate marketing is also called "performance marketing", in reference to how sales employees are typically being compensated. Such employees are typically paid

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2898-551: The artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNow home page and going directly to the artist's music page. Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996: Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page. When visitors clicked on the associate's website to go to Amazon and purchase

2967-632: The attention of entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, who later joined as the company's CFO and later became its CEO . Later that year, O'Connor and Merriman met Fergus O'Daily, the CEO of Poppe Tyson. Poppe Tyson had created an Interactive Sales division, but lacked the technology to deliver online ads across its network of client's sites. O'Connor, Merriman, and O'Daily decided to merge the two companies. To prevent competition from each company's sales teams, in November 1995 DoubleClick

3036-463: The brand name AdKnowledge. The first local ad server was released by NetGravity in January 1996 for delivering online advertising at major publishing sites such as Yahoo! and Pathfinder . The company was founded by Tom Shields and John Danner , and is based in San Mateo, California . In 1998, the company went public on NASDAQ (NETG), and was purchased by DoubleClick in 1999. NetGravity AdServer

3105-567: The business model of paying a commission on sales to the Prodigy Network . In 1994, Tobin launched a beta version of PC Flowers & Gifts on the Internet in cooperation with IBM , which owned half of Prodigy. By 1995 PC Flowers & Gifts had launched a commercial version of the website and had 2,600 affiliate marketing partners on the World Wide Web . Tobin applied for a patent on tracking and affiliate marketing on January 22, 1996, and

3174-431: The categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers. Affiliate networks that already have several advertisers typically also have a large pool of publishers . These publishers could be potentially recruited, and there is also an increased chance that publishers in the network apply to the program on their own, without the need for recruitment efforts by

3243-578: The contract, or b) completes the purchase. Affiliate marketing overlaps with network marketing, also known as multi-level marketing (MLM). Multi-level refers to different levels of compensation offered by companies to different tiers of distributor. While MLM schemes are not inherently illegal, they become illegal when income from recruitment-fees and similar exceeds the sale of actual goods and services. In these situations, MLM schemes overlap with pyramid schemes and ponzi schemes . Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into

3312-549: The core DART system and rebranded DART search. DoubleClick Advertising Exchange connected both media buyers and sellers on an advertising exchange much like the financial negotiations of listed companies' capital stock. Google sold Performics in 2008 to Publicis . In April 2005, Hellman & Friedman , a San Francisco-based private equity firm, agreed to acquire the company for $ 1.1 billion. On April 13, 2007, Google agreed to acquire DoubleClick for US$ 3.1 billion in cash. The deal raised concerns surrounding competition with both

3381-461: The emergence of affiliate marketing, there has been little control over affiliate activity. Unscrupulous affiliates have used spam , false advertising , forced clicks (to get tracking cookies set on users' computers), adware , and other methods to drive traffic to their sponsors. Although many affiliate programs have terms of service that contain rules against spam , this marketing method has historically proven to attract abuse from spammers. In

3450-425: The entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband ) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix. Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts— blogging and interactive online communities , for example—have impacted

3519-516: The infancy of affiliate marketing, many Internet users held negative opinions due to the tendency of affiliates to use spam to promote the programs in which they were enrolled. As affiliate marketing matured, many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming. A browser extension is a plug-in that extends the functionality of a web browser. Some extensions are authored using web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Most modern web browsers have

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3588-421: The issue much more quickly, especially because they noticed that adware often overwrites tracking cookies, thus resulting in a decline of commissions. Affiliates not employing adware felt that it was stealing commission from them. Adware often has no valuable purpose and rarely provides any useful content to the user, who is typically unaware that such software is installed on his/her computer. Affiliates discussed

3657-399: The issues in Internet forums and began to organize their efforts. They believed that the best way to address the problem was to discourage merchants from advertising via adware. Merchants that were either indifferent to or supportive of adware were exposed by affiliates, thus damaging those merchants' reputations and tarnishing their affiliate marketing efforts. Many affiliates either terminated

3726-422: The largest companies run their own affiliate networks (for example Amazon), most merchants join affiliate networks which provide reporting tools and payment processing. The concept of revenue sharing —paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened in November 1994, almost four years after

3795-497: The largest issue concerned affiliates bidding on advertisers names, brands, and trademarks. Several advertisers began to adjust their affiliate program terms to prohibit their affiliates from bidding on those type of keywords. Some advertisers, however, did and still do embrace this behavior, going so far as to allow, or even encourage, affiliates to bid on any term, including the advertiser's trademarks. Bloggers and other publishers may not be aware of disclosure guidelines set forth by

3864-527: The market or expand their market presence. Currently, there are hundreds of ad networks worldwide and the landscape changes daily. The inventory of online advertising space comes in many different forms, including space on the desktop and mobile websites, in RSS feeds , blogs, instant messaging applications, mobile apps , adware , e-mails, and other media. The dominant forms of inventory include third-party content websites, which work with advertising networks for either

3933-417: The networks on behalf of the merchant, by the network, consolidated across all merchants where the publisher has a relationship with and earned commissions or directly by the merchant itself. Uncontrolled affiliate programs aid rogue affiliates, who use spamming , trademark infringement , false advertising , cookie stuffing , typosquatting , and other unethical methods that have given affiliate marketing

4002-503: The origination of the World Wide Web . The concept of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. Tobin , the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts had generated sales more than $ 6 million per year on the Prodigy service. In 1998, PC Flowers and Gifts developed

4071-414: The publisher has already earned his commission. This leaves the greater, and, in case of cost per mille, the full risk and loss (if the visitor cannot be converted) to the advertiser. Cost per action /sale methods require that referred visitors do more than visit the advertiser's website before the affiliate receives a commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest of

4140-512: The top-most results to a lower position). To avoid this categorization, affiliate marketer webmasters must create quality content on their websites that distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms, which only contain links leading to merchant sites. Although it differs from spyware , adware often uses the same methods and technologies. Merchants initially were uninformed about adware, what impact it had, and how it could damage their brands. Affiliate marketers became aware of

4209-414: The use of such merchants or switched to a competitor's affiliate program. Eventually, affiliate networks were also forced by merchants and affiliates to take a stand and ban certain adware publishers from their network. The result was Code of Conduct by Commission Junction /beFree and Performics, LinkShare 's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum, and ShareASale 's complete ban of software applications as

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4278-543: Was issued U.S. Patent number 6,141,666 on Oct 31, 2000. Tobin also received Japanese Patent number 4021941 on Oct 5, 2007, and U.S. Patent number 7,505,913 on Mar 17, 2009, for affiliate marketing and tracking. In July 1998 PC Flowers and Gifts merged with Fingerhut and Federated Department Stores . In November 1994, CDNow launched its BuyWeb program. CDNow had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors might be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer

4347-617: Was known as DART (Dynamic Advertising, Reporting, and Targeting), which was intended to increase the purchasing efficiency of advertisers and minimize unsold inventory for publishers. DoubleClick was founded in 1995 by Kevin O'Connor and Dwight Merriman and had headquarters in New York City , United States. It was acquired by private equity firms Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity in July 2005. On March 11, 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick for $ 3.1 billion. In June 2018, Google announced plans to rebrand its ads platforms, and DoubleClick

4416-488: Was merged into the new Google Marketing Platform brand. DoubleClick Bid Manager became Display and Video 360, DoubleClick Search became Search Ads 360, and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) became Google Ad Manager 360. In 1995, Kevin O'Connor and Dwight Merriman developed the concept for DoubleClick in O'Connor's basement. They created a system to display banner ads across a network of websites and track their performance to better target internet users. The product caught

4485-562: Was more common in the early days of affiliate marketing but has diminished in use over time due to click fraud issues very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today. Contextual advertising programs are not considered in the statistic pertaining to the diminished use of cost per click, as it is uncertain if contextual advertising can be considered affiliate marketing. While these models have diminished in mature e-commerce and online advertising markets they are still prevalent in some more nascent industries. China

4554-465: Was released by FocaLink Media Services and introduced on July 17, 1995, for controlling the delivery of online advertising or banner ads . Although most contemporary accounts are no longer available online, the Weizmann Institute of Science published an academic research paper documenting the launch of the first ad server. The original motherboard for the first ad server, assembled in June 1995,

4623-457: Was released by affiliate networks Commission Junction / beFree and Performics in December 2002 to guide practices and adherence to ethical standards for online advertising. In 2008 the state of New York passed a law asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to New York residents. New York was aware of Amazon affiliates operating within the state. In Quill Corp. v. North Dakota ,

4692-913: Was spun off as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary. DoubleClick was founded as one of the earliest known Application Service Providers (ASP) for internet "ad-serving"—primarily banner ads. In February 1998, during the dot-com bubble , the company became a public company , trading on NASDAQ under the symbol DCLK, via an initial public offering . Shares rose 75% on the first day of trading. In June 1999, DoubleClick acquired Abacus Direct, which marketed consumer-purchasing data to catalog firms. In July 1999, DoubleClick acquired NetGravity and rebranded NetGravity AdServer as DART Enterprise. As of 2002, DoubleClick faced six lawsuits, including class-action lawsuits, related to invasions of privacy. Privacy groups complained that DoubleClick's plan to combine its online profiling information with offline information gathered by Abacus Direct would violate privacy rules, including

4761-489: Was then renamed to DART Enterprise. In March 2008 Google acquired DoubleClick. Google has continued to improve and invest in DART Enterprise. The latest version of the product was renamed and shipped as DoubleClick Enterprise 8.0 on September 28, 2011. Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for

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