Our Experiences With Commission Junction
February 6, 2010 Posted by WhatsGoodBlogThis article was written by Josh Bucher (Jay Booshay) and Ian Sherwin (The Sherwinator) of What’s Good Blog. What’s Good Blog is your one stop site for up to date reviews of technology, sporting events, TV shows, movies, electronics, cell phones and everything that is important to young adult professionals.
A little over two weeks ago, we decided to finally move to our own host and domain. We spent about 8 months on BlogSpot but eventually decided it was time to move on from the free hosting days. As we expanded our website capabilities using WordPress, we also decided to expand our revenue earning beyond the horizon of Google AdSense. While AdSense was great for beginners who do not really have any experience with affiliate marketing and content based ads, eventually you will need to incorporate other methods to start earning revenue.
We decided to experiment with Commission Junction Affiliate Marketing, located at www.cj.com. Commission Junction is basically a hub where you can search for companies by name, type, theme, genre, category, etc… that you are interested in promoting on your site. Once you find companies that you are interested in working with, you have to apply and be approved by the company itself before you can continue the process. Some applications take a few days for a response, and others take only seconds. Some of the higher end companies require you to have had your website running for at least several months and also frequently require you to have at least a certain amount of unique visitors per day. Each company varies.
Once you are approved for an affiliate program, you will receive an email from the company itself introducing themselves and discussing how their program works. Many of the companies offer commissions in the range of 2%-15%. Once you decide that you want to work with the company (after being approved), you then click on their link, where you are then taken to a banner generator. Often, you can decide what size banner you want, what color, whether or not it’s in flash or html, etc. Each company provides their own advertisements and sizes. Once the code has been generated, you can place it directly onto your homepage/main page, directly into an article, or wherever else you may desire. (Check out the affiliate section of our homepage)
After the banner has been added to your site, you can track clicks, leads, sales, and more right through Commission Junction’s control center, much like you can in either Google AdSense or Amazon’s Affiliate Marketing Program. Right off the bat, in our first month of using Commission Junction, we have had more clicks than we ever had using Google AdSense. At this rate, Commission Junction could become our main advertising utility.
Be advised though – its not that simple. Most of the advertisers only pay commissions and not for leads or clicks. So in order to really make any money, you have to have lots of clicks in the hopes that some of these clicks will result in a product purchase. A good idea is to incorporate these ads into your articles that deal with similar content. For example, I included a Bplay ad in an article about a Blackberry App (check it out). This is a great way to utilize Commission Junction’s affiliates to the maximum.
Commission Junction also offers great performance reporting based on individual ads and days. We have been using this to optimize our ad placement and ad selection. For example, we have several ads that have been getting a very high percentage of clicks per impressions (over 50%). We have been swapping ads in and out of the website according to these statistics. These can track not only individual advertisers but their individual ads that you place in your website.
Unfortunately, you cannot view the exit page of the ad. That would be a really helpful tool, especially when learning of the ad placement. In less than one month, we have already had 84 clicks out of 14,792 impressions, far surpassing our performance in Google AdSense. However, keep in mind, most advertisers only pay for commissions and not clicks.
Overall, Commission Junction is a great affiliate program with huge potential when its used effectively. The variety of advertisers surpasses many other advertising venues and the potential commissions are at very competitive rates. Give Commission Junction a try and let us know what you think.
commission junction is really good network no doubt about and has best web hosting offers.
you have to be careful tho, as most of them shave.
I’m very confused as to the point of this article. Tyler are you outsourcing your sponsored reviews now? Or something else?
I guess I’m just confused a couple random dudes are talking about one of the oldest affiliate programs in existence. A program that by many accounts still kinda sucks due to account deactivation at random times (although I’ve heard less complaints lately).
Chris Guthrie
CJ has been nothing but trouble for me. Sure they have loads of offers but they also have such overbearing restrictions on most of them that they are not worth promoting as a serious affiliate. The whole network seems to be more about getting banner exposure for the advertisers than getting any value for affiliates. The one campaign I really did nail with CJ the advertiser complained (nothing to do with the quality of the traffic – they just didn’t like my website) and had all commissions reversed. This was way after the event and just before I was due to get paid. I made such a show of them (CJ) that they agreed to cover the commission themselves and apologies for the advtertisers behaviour. I drop the odd link from CJ in to my stuff where it fits but I’d never ever dream of doing anything to actively pomote the advertisers on that network again.
Lol, this post is kind of old news. Mostly everyone knows of CJ…
The account deactivation is soooo draconian… as far as this post, it’s a guest post.. but without affiliate links?
Forgot to click button to subscribe to email updates…
I’ve played with several paid-for, premium themes, and as my coding knowledge is poor, I have struggled with them. Thesis definitely seems like it could be the answer, so I am seriously looking at purchasing the theme.
What the heck are you talking about? This post has nothing to do with the thesis theme.
It’s a great affiliate network that promotes learning and collaboration. The training is thorough and whatever you don’t learn through training you can certainly learn from all the talented and intelligent individuals that work there.
Till then,
Jean
How exactly does CJ promote “learning and collaboration”?
Have we gone back to 1999?! This post is so random…
I’m glad someone sees the same thing I do.
How about the randomness of the comments as well.. thesis theme? “great affiliate network that promotes learning and collaboration”?
I wish i saw this informative post 12 years ago!
I just signed up for an affiliate who uses CJ. Seems pretty straight-forward, I just wanted to use it for a link so I can refer people to a particular site for creating business cards.
Wonder if it will go over well. 🙂
Well done… CJ is a great place to start with CPA offers… of course and as you say in the post you must get used to a different way of getting paid… different from Adsense for sure!
I like CJ because they have so many offers to choose from!
I agree that CJ.com is an awesome affiliate program. I have tried others but always stick with CJ because it’s one of the best
CJ is a good one because of the great selection.. their terms and conditions leave something to be desired though…
you mentioned clicks, but not about conversions. i wonder how that was comparing to adsense
I see a lot of people complaining about CJ as being an old school affiliate network not worth the effort. In my opinion it is still one of the best affiliate networks out there. It is where some of the biggest advertisers promote their affiliate programs. Sure some of their terms and conditions are restrictive, but that happens with many affiliate programs.
CJ looks good and i will try it out but does any one know any other good affiliate marketing sites?
ShareASale, LinkShare
CJ is good except the requirements are hard to cover.
CJ is a great network but you have to target the traffic extrememely well in order to earn commisions. As in google adsense there is a massive array of products and service availible but with CJ there is only one product and supplier.
Thanks guys for reading the article. We haven’t had many problems with CJ at all. They support affiliate sales of relatively any product or service that you can think of. It gives us a wide range of options for the blog, and doesn’t limit us like other services tend to do. It costs no money so there’s virtually no risk.
CJ is always one step ahead, using them for a year know and I’m more than happy!
CJ does certainly have alot of advertisers to chose from, but making any money over there seems like a pipe dream. Since the beginning of this year, I have 16,282 impressions, 7,167 clicks, and $0.00 commissions earned. swim back!
I think CJ is really very unique and prolific, which can provide us good opportunity to grow the business.
Seems pretty straight-forward, I just wanted to use it for a link so I can refer people to a particular site for creating business cards.
CJ has high reputation, their merchant list is huge, almost all niche are there. i hope the navigation could be simpler
I must say, i’m surprised to see such a poor post, random as hell.
On topic though, CJ sucks. Yes they have lots of offers but they scrub and cancel accounts at will.
I like CJ because they have so many offers to choose from!
Hi, thanks for sharing your reviews about this affiliates. Very informative and comprehensive post.
I have actually never tried any of the cpa programs.
I think they annoy our visitors and Adsense seems to be better in all aspects.
But after reading the article i think its worth a try.
Never been a big fan of CJ. I have never really earned a great bit with them.
I have never really been a big fan of CJ. Possibly because I never really was able to generate a lot of revenue with it. The other part was that sometimes, I would take it personally when my sites would get rejected. I know it isn’t personal but still. Doesn’t make you feel good when you do get rejected!
They have loads of good offers and pay like a clickwork, definitely one of the best networks!
haha…the only people touting CJ in this post are blog spam posters…haha..
CJ is a joke. Their interface is totally unusable…you can’t even figure out how to log in to their junky site.
The only way they’re in business is because the started early…
They don’t deserve to be in business. They are total crap.
My new year resolution was not to take one, but after reading your post I have
I like CJ because they have so many offers to choose from !!
Alot of people I know are very wary of Commission Junction.
I see a lot of people complaining about CJ as being an old school affiliate network not worth the effort. 😉
This is way to old of a topic but nonetheless I am amused to how much attention and comment this has generated. Which makes me post one too. LOL.