This post is part of a series on Affiliate Programs for Blogs
Commission Junction is another affiliate program mega store (like clickbank) that offers thousands of products from different industries for you to get commissions from.
In a sense CJ is a middleman between you the affiliate and companies who have products to sell.
I’ve used Commission Junction for a year or so now and have never really had much success with it – partly because I’ve not found many products in it that quite fit with the topics that I write on and partly because I have found other programs (like Amazon) to be easier to add to my blogs.
In fact I’ve used Commission Junction so little in the past few months that today when I logged onto it I found that my account has been deactivated (I’ve since reactivated it).
Once you’ve applied to join Commission Junction you then need to apply to join some of the many programs that run within it. Each advertisers in the system has their own program and if you wish to promote their products you apply to do so. Once your application is approved you are then able to use links provided to promote their products.
I understand why they use this system but it can make getting products up onto your blog to promote a longer process (and more frustrating if you’re rejected) than other systems like Amazon and Clickbank in which you are free to promote any product or service in their system. For example I’ve just now applied to become an affiliate of the Commission Junction program but was rejected for no reason.
As you can tell I’m not a major fan of CJ but I include it in this series because I know of website owners who use it very effectively and make good money from it.
Pros of Commission Junction
• wide variety of products/services/companies to promote
• better quality products than clickbank (no cheap and nasty e-books here). In fact they represent some very big companies.
• options given for different types of links (including text, buttons, banners etc)
• reasonable statistics information given
Cons of Commission Junction
• perhaps a downside of the variety of products on offer is the overwhelming nature of CJ
• slightly more complicated interface than a program like Amazon
• they deactivated my account!
• application to programs within the larger Commission Junction network can be frustrating and a long process
Share your experience with Commission Junction in comments below.
I dont like Cj that much. ive been a member for about 8 months or so and I find I get rejected from the majority of the programs i apply to. I may not have the great website but i do have a decent page rank & steady feed subscriber base and i’ll never understand how these advertises choose who they will allow their ads to appear on.
I mean I ve seen some horrible sites that get accepted by every paidTo site there is. such as blogs still hosted on 3rd party services that cover their entire blogs with ads left right and center and then just post copy/pastes from news sites.
Does anyone have feedback on an affiliate company called PayDot.com?
I have a hard goods products (dog lover’s greeting card packs.) I have several companies interested in selling them on an affiliate basis.
This company (PayDot.com) looks good on the outside – I would so appreciate a current user’s perspective before I spent a lot of my time getting this up and running. I’ve been burned by affiliate programs before. That’s how I found my way here!
thank you.
Viveca
P.S. Also open to other recommendations. Is there another product or service I should contact?
I am not a cj fan… I have had serious issues with commissions not showing up… i.e. people joining websites that should yield anywhere from 1 – 8 dollars getting me nothing. Like their joining never happened. :P
I Had Commission Junction ADS All over My Sites until I Got a card in The Mail
That said that they were being sued, and ask me if I wanted
to join in on the suit…
What wrong with these company’s?…
You are right sir, They deactivated my account also because they have terms for deactivating a account which remains inactive for a long time. Later on i try to reactive my account And now its working.
Cj has some lead programme which pays for a free signup.
I earned good amount in those programmes.
I was interested in CJ as an affliate provider but, when I went to their sign-up page, the requirements said “No Blogs allowed”: https://www.cj.com/advertisers/application_process.html
Am I going to the wrong page? Although, truth be told, most users here don’t give a ringing endorsement of CJ so I may not bother…
Cheers,
Richard
If you check on browser there should be appear your reference PID… Some are showing, but many are not. Many of the reference URL link their provide to us only showing that the source of reference comes from CJ site only. Example : http://www.creativejobscentral.com/photography-jobs/?channel=cj
While it should be :
http://www.creativejobscentral.com/photography-jobs/?ref=yourPID
They are collecting money from our sites.. If you know what i mean…
Hi all,
I am really worried because i have joined CJ today only. But i am hearing from you guys that CJ is not meant for bloggers.
Moreover My blog is new and does not have much traffic so please suggest me some best paying affiliate programmes that can generate some good income for my blog.
Google is also not approving my blog for Adsense because of unknown issue. Plese help me..
My URL is http://theartofstart.blogspot.com/
Thanks all for sharing your experience..
I have join CJ for 3 month. the sells is not so good. I use my blog to promote cj product. I didn’t read the application process until i read this page. now i know it.
Until now i still not give up on CJ.
My URL is http://us.greatsalestoday.com/
Keshav, I’ve been with them for some time and they canceled my account today. Actually they wrote me that my account would be canceled due to dormancy, if I won’t start making money. I am probably missing something and didn’t grasp that money is growing on every tree around and I wasn’t harvesting it. I was so angry that I told them to cancel the account.
I have a blog about investing into stocks at http://hellosuckers.net which is kind of my personal journal about investing into stocks and I could find only a few advertisers on CJ related to investing. Mostly they were paying upon a sale of their product. As a newbie I really didn’t find out how I should promote those more than I already did. So CJ doesn’t sound like a good choice when they push you to something you are unable to affect effectively. Maybe if you sell electronics or have an online shop it may work, but having some ads on my blog I considered as a supplemental part of the web.
Now I am looking for something else, where I will have some freedom.
I am a cj publisher. First my account was deactivated last year for some reason. But they sent $227.04 money to me by check after deactivating my account. Cj is excellent and good. Now I sign up with a new email address and running their ads.