CJ Affiliate was formerly known as Commission Junction. They are one of the best companies for affiliate marketers to find high-paying affiliate programs to represent. They represent many Fortune 500 companies that you can align with as an affiliate. They are a large company owned by a huge company.
The Commission Junction affiliate network was started over 20 years ago in Santa Barbara, California. They were formerly known as Commission Junction. They are one of the oldest affiliate marketing networks and are not going anywhere.
They specialize in pay-for-performance programs. When a referred customer purchases or performs the desired action the affiliate is paid. CJ Affiliate is part of a Fortune 500, $6b market cap, Alliance Data Systems.
CJ Affiliate is the preferred affiliate network of many major retailers. Every niche has multiple brand name companies to work with.
How to Join the CJ Affiliate Network
Joining CJ Affiliate is very straight forward. You start by heading over to http://www.cj.com/
The first thing to realize is that you, affiliate marketer is the “publisher” (they expect you are a content creator) and the product sellers are the “advertisers”.
There is a simple three-step process to join the CJ Affiliate Network …
CJ Affiliate Signup Forms
1
The first thing to do is to select Publisher -> Overview from the top menu, scroll down and you will find the signup button.
The signup form that starts the process looks like this …
2
CJ will now send an email to confirm your account registration.
Open the email and select the confirmation link to get the Publisher Signup Form.
3
The Publisher Signup Form requests information about ..
- Contact Information
- Company Information
- Website Information
At the bottom are terms and agreements regarding ..
- Publisher Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Confirm you are over 18
- Confirm you are authorized to enter the agreements
Simply accept the terms and you are good to go.
Go to our affiliate programs page for more program reviews.
Finding Good CJ Affiliate Partners
CJ has a very deep list of companies that want you to be their affiliate. It can be a bit overwhelming. CJ advertisers can choose to auto-approve or manually approve each applicant. There are some basic characteristics you are looking for …
- An offer highly relevant to your audience and niche
- A product available in your geographic area
- A product with high commission, high EPC and high network earnings — 4-5.
Searching for New Partners
CJ has a strong search engine. The best thing to do is to search by category. Once you are in your desired category you can browse through these listings. You can also filter by …
- Serviceable Area
- Language
- Advertisers Country
- Geographic Source
- Country
Good Methods for Marketing CJ Affiliate Advertisors
Niche Specific — You always want to think about your audience, If you are a niche devoted to tennis, offers for products that relate to fashion will likely not convert well (unless it was tennis outfits).
In Text Linking — The best-converting links are usually those in the body of an informative article. Not a banner or sidebar ad.
Commission Rate and EPC — You want to align yourself with advertisers that are doing well on CJ and those that pay well. ‘
Brands — It is good for your authority and reputation to associate yourself with powerful brands. They will convert well and you will get a halo effect by association.
Bad Methods for Marketing CJ Affiliate Advertisers
Shotgun Approach — You sign up for the highest paying affiliates regardless of niche, put the advertiser provided banners and widgets all over your site … and wait. This will not work. If you have a ton of traffic you may get the odd sale but you left money on the table by not targeting your affiliate links to your audience.
No Context — You want to put links in context in money pages. The best-performing links are in money pages that are linked to from info pages. These visitors arriving from buying intent keywords will convert best. Linking from related info pages to money pages will help them rank.
What are buying intent keywords you ask?
Understanding Details of the Advertiser’sListing
Once you find some advertisers you want to look at in detail, it is important to understand the CJ advertiser program description pages.
The program description page for an advertiser has 4 tabs …
MORE INFO | PROGRAM TERMS | RELATIONSHIP HISTORY | LINKED ACCOUNTS |
When searching for companies to represent you will need to understand the way CJ organizes information about each advertiser. I like to check …
- Program Description
- Commission rate
- Network Earnings
- EPC
- Cookie Length
- Traffic Source
More Info Tab
The Program Description and Traffic Source are found under the MORE INFO tab …
Advertiser’s Description – This is the company and product information.
Traffic Source – A nice extra from CJ. You can see where purchases come from geographically and are sure you are aligned.
Program Terms Tab
The Commission Rate, EPC, Network Earnings and Cookie Length are found under the PROGRAM TERMS tab.
Commission Rate – This is, of course, a primary item – how much will you get. Usually a % of the sale but sometimes a flat fee or a recurring % rate
EPC – This is the earnings per 100 clicks to the advertiser. CJ shows this as the EPC for 7 and 30-day periods. This is showing you the basic conversion rate of the offer and the average sales amount.
Network earnings – This is as close to ranking advertisers as CJ gets. Stick with companies ranked 4-5 unless a special fit for your niche.
Cookie Length – This is referred to as the referral period at CJ. The cookie is the way that CJ and other affiliate companies no to credit you. When someone arrives at the offer page from your CJ link a cookie is placed in their browser. When they purchase, the cookie information is used to determine who to credit.
CJ Affiliate Tools and Support
CJ is great with the usual things like banners and ads but they take things a step further. They provide …
- Event Links: Xmas, Mother’s Day, Cyber Monday
- Special Promotions: Sales, Hot sweeps & products
- Multiple Link Types: Ads, Widgets, Banner, Text Link, Content Link
Content Certification
CJ also has a content certification program for larger publishers (10k monthly visits). As a Content Certified publisher, you automatically connect with over 600 leading brands as well as other premium benefits. .Check out CJ Affiliate’s Content Certified program.
Creating Deep Links on the CJ Affiliate Platform
Deep linking is a highly desirable feature. If you are writing an in-depth article about a specific product at an advertiser’s website, you want to link to that product. Maybe the specifications page, etc. Deep linking allows you to do this an get affiliate credit for conversions. This is particularly useful for links in info articles. It locks up the visitor for future purchases as long as the cookie is active.
Should You Join the CJ Affiliate Network?
Must serious affiliate marketers have … so yes. They run an excellent marketplace, pay their commissions quickly and best of all have some great companies whose products you can represent.