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.
