CJ Affiliate Review (Commission
Commission Junction was founded in 1998 before being acquired by ValueClick in 2003.
It was later renamed to “CJ Affiliate by Conversant” in 2014.
However, any affiliate marketer I know of still calls them CJ’s.
CJ was the best affiliate network in the world at one point.
But let’s find out if that’s still true today.
Record
CJ keeps things nice and fácil for a new affiliate – you are either an “Advertiser” or a “Publisher” so there is no room for confusion:
It was an interesting exercise to go through the registration process again after almost 20 years.
First, you need to provide basic contact information, which then triggers a confirmation correo electrónico.
Clic the backlink in that correo electrónico to go to the next step where you entrar some basic payment details and choose a password:
Next, you need to add information about your company:
And then some details about your website or blog:
CJ asks how many unique visitors their site gets per month, but they also have a “Not Launched Yet” option.
However, I would never apply to an affiliate network without an active website, it is good practice to have at least some web presence.
Altogether, the CJ Affiliate by Conversant application process is painless and much less hassle than other networks.
What brands perro you promote?
Having great marks on her books was always where CJ kicked the competition to the curb back in the day.
And this network hasn’t changed one iota in that sense.
Here’s a quick sampling of the types of businesses you cánido apply to represent through CJ:
CJ still has probably the best selection of big brands present in any affiliate network.
Names like Zappos, Verizon, Barnes & Noble and IHG (International Hotel Group) have a lot of influence when it comes to attracting both affiliate marketers and other advertisers to this network.
So are the rest of the 2,869 advertisers (I counted) on CJ Affiliate by Conversant just as impressive?
No.
But CJ has enough big hitters that you won’t care.
Easy to use
The CJ Affiliate by Conversant dashboard has remained relatively unchanged over the years, save for a few cosmetic tweaks here and there.
Your main “workspace” is thankfully clear:
It provides a quick snapshot/review of your account and I like the layout – there’s a lot of white space so it’s easier to read and navigate.
Most of the de hoy functions you need are nested in a series of dropdown menus:
- Account
- Advertisers
- backlinks
- Widgets (explained later)
- Reports – for stat nerds
- Correo: your internal CJ correo
- Collocations (explained later)
- Insights (advanced reports)
It’s having them all in one place like this because it keeps them from cluttering up other parts of the board.
What I really like about CJ’s affiliate interfaz is that it doesn’t look or feel cluttered, which is helped a lot by the muted color schemes.
I get a pain in my face looking at affiliate panels that are literally 15 different shades of blue, it’s enough to give you a headache.
CJ feels light and airy by comparison.
Therefore, they score quite high on the ease of use scale.
Find affiliate programs
Even though this part of its interfaz gets on my nerves at times, the end result is well worth the effort.
To get started, clic on ‘Advertisers’ in the top menu and then you perro quickly search for espectáculos by keyword or by advertiser name:
This works fenezca for general searches, but the reality is that your niche is specific, so the programs you’re searching for will reflect that.
You cánido also search by categories, but also by:
- Advertiser Type
- Advertiser Status
- Service area
- Language
- Advertiser Country
- geographic source
- Badge
This is overkill to me, agregado each sub-menu expands, making it look and feel really cluttered. I’m not sure what the solution is, but there has to be a better way because this screen is where the UX is going to die.
That being said, you cánido save your searches… which is just as nice considering the number of parameters you perro play with.
But now we come to the really good stuff: filtering advertisers by their earning potential.
CJ comes into play here.
Let’s say you’re looking for affiliate programs for your financial services blog:
Finding programs is easy enough once you search by category, but obviously you’ll want to find programs that pay well and have metrics to prove it, i.y también. their EPC.
You perro filter each program in CJ by:
- 7 day EPC
- 3 month CPE
- network earnings
Now a trick here is to filter by ‘Network Earnings – High to Low’ because brands that score high here also tend to have relatively high EPCs and pay pretty well too.
Direct top by EPC results in many new and untested affiliate programs appearing first:
Then each program after that is listed by its de hoy 7 or 90 day EPC.
So this looks and feels clunky to use.
But I forgive them because CJ makes finding profitable programs a breeze.
Which is exactly what every affiliate network should strive to achieve.
Generally speaking, there is a high barrier to entry for most programs in CJ.
You must generate network sales before being approved, but you cannot generate sales without first being accepted into at least one program.
Too many CJ merchants have this chicken and egg mentality when it comes to new affiliates.
Create affiliate backlinks
There was a time when creating affiliate backlinks on CJ was a very vanilla affair.
It worked, but it wasn’t anything special.
But times have changed.
The estándar way of creating backlinks has remained much the same: you clic ‘Backlinks’ and then ‘Search’.
Next, choose your advertiser and review the creatives offered:
This design is a disaster, mainly because its focus is so heavily on mobile-optimized offerings that it pushes the types of backlinks you perro create off the main menu.
Pepperjam’s tabbed layout works much better than this.
But to make up for this flaw, CJ also offers two additional backlink building tools.
The ‘Deep Backlink Generator’ is the expected bookmarklet for your browser, allowing you to create a backlink to a specific page of a joined affiliate program:
But you also get the ‘Page Based Backlink’ tool.
With this, you install a single JavaScript backlink on your site, and then each backlink you create cánido just be an old dirección de Internet with no affiliate sticky bits.
And you still get credit for all sales.
But it doesn’t stop there.
You perro also create product widgets for your site:
Basically, this allows you to create a slideshow, collage, or grid featuring products from whatever affiliate program you’ve joined:
And the entire process is a drag-and-drop affair, so even a complete novice cánido build “tables” of products:
We are not sure why they are called “widget” products, but the main thing is that it works.
And finally, we should mention ‘Placements’, which is where you perro create opportunities for advertisers to ‘buy’ ad space on your website:
Their affiliate backlink building systems aren’t perfect, but CJ is still way ahead of the curve in terms of innovation.
receive payments
Now is the time to review when affiliates get paid, how you get paid, and how much you need to earn before you get paid.
Within pay
Affiliate commissions are paid on a net 30 basis, so you will receive payment from your referrals approximately 30 days after the purchase is made.
Payments are scheduled on the 20th of every month for earned locked commissions, and then it’s a case of waiting for your check or direct deposit to espectáculo up.
This usually takes no more than 7 days.
Payment methods
You perro choose to receive payment by check or direct deposit:
But you perro also get paid into a Payoneer account vía ‘CJ International Payments’.
The only thing missing is a PayPal option, but not all affiliates need or want that these days.
payment threshold
Affiliates must generate at least $50 in commissions before they perro get paid.
Help for publishers
Ideally, you would never need to contact your affiliate network for help, but that won’t always be the case.
So what support options does CJ offer?
Your default option is “Support Center”, which is basically your knowledge base. Most affiliates will find an answer to their question here:
It is also very well designed and the search function is very accurate in terms of the results it returns.
But if you need human customer support, you cánido contact them vía the ‘Contact Support’ menu option.
And from there you perro use the contact form or their web chat support for your affiliate marketing inquiry:
But there isn’t a readily available phone number if you want to hear a human voice… but a quick Google plus search will espectáculo it.
Overall, CJ’s customer support options are good but not amazing.
CJ Affiliate Reviews
Now is the time to hear the vox populi – some very candid affiliate reviews of CJ Affiliate by Conversant.
So the first piece of negative retroalimentación is from an affiliate who had their account deactivated just before they got paid.
And the following comment is from an affiliate who had his account closed just before he received his affiliate payout.
And the final piece is from… well… You cánido see the trend here.
So the basic statement, by these disgruntled guys, not us, is that CJ Affiliate by Conversant will close your account without paying you.
Making it just one big affiliate marketing scam.
But this is where the context matters.
Maybe these affiliates did something to justify this?
Like cookie filling.
Or buy your CJ account on some dodgy black hat forum.
Key points
- dirección de Internet: CJ Affiliate by Conversant
- Foundation year: 1998
- Number of merchants: 2,800+
- Types of offer: CPA, Lead, Sales, Placement
Conversant CJ Affiliate Program Overview
So what’s our Commission Junction objetivo roundup?
Pros
- You get some really great brands to promote
- Fácil and intuitive interfaz
- CJ affiliates enjoy a wide selection of backlink building tools
- You perro also “sell” ad placement space on your site
- They pay like clockwork every month
- One of the oldest affiliate networks out there
Cons
- Their affiliate program filtering system is bass ackwards
- It cánido be hard to find espectáculos that match certain niches
- They are no longer the dominant force that they were.
To end
So there you have our thoughts on CJ as an affiliate marketing network.
Overall, CJ still rates as one of the best affiliate networks around, and especially for beginners.
They provide you with a solid equipo of tools, on a stable platform with plenty of support.
They may lack the bells and whistles of others, but all that glitters is not gold.
We hope you liked our article CJ Affiliate Review (Commission
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