It’s earnings season. That wonderful, eventful period that comes around four times a year and gives us all a chance to see just how well all the publicly traded companies have performed over the last quarter. Many of you might be surprised to find out that I look forward to these periods more than the semi-annual blow out sales at Macy’s and Nordstrom. And that’s really saying something since I am quite a shopaholic.

But I’m also a journalist. That means having specific figures and exact numbers to scrutinize and possibly refute the claims of overzealous PR people makes me all happy inside. There’s nothing better than being armed with facts – not just information – facts.

And as most business school graduates, scientists and baseball stat nerds will tell you - numbers don’t lie. Sure, they can be manipulated in a lot of different ways, but thanks to Enron and WorldCom, more stringent government laws and regulations surround corporate governance. No one wants those types of financial debacles to ever happen again.

Over the next couple of weeks we will get a financial glimpse into several companies that help drive the affiliate marketing space. While some of the leaders, such as LinkShare are privately-held and don’t have to report financial information, others including, Commission Junction and Performics, are owned by parent companies that have stockholders and must break out their sales and profits.

If you’re involved in affiliate marketing it’s your duty to look very carefully at these results. They will give you a better peak into who you are doing business with and how their business may impact yours.

Commission Junction’s parent company, ValueClick, will report its 2004 year-end numbers February 17. DoubleClick, which bought Performics for $58 million in May 2004, released its earnings today. DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan says the company had better than expected revenue from its Search Engine and Affiliate Marketing products.

So check out the results, then start blogging and let me know if these results impact you in any way and what you’ve learned from looking at the earnings report.