A Beginner Guide To Commission Junction: CJ Affiliate Review

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Introducing Commission Junction
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This is part of your affiliate marketing guides series, and if you have missed my earlier articles; you should first go through them to understand the basics. Here are the links for your reference:

Today I will be sharing a detailed tutorial about Commission Junction which is one very popular market place for Affiliate Marketers.

I have been a part of commission junction as a publisher for almost 9 years, and indeed they are a reputed Affiliate network where you can find high-quality affiliate products to promote.

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In this guide, I will cover all important thing which you need to know about Commission Junction which is recently re-branded as CJ Affiliate by Conversant.

What is CJ Affiliate by Conversant and How You Can Start Using it?

CJ Affiliate by Conversant; previously known as Commission Junction is an affiliate marketplace, where you can find thousands of products to promote and make money.

This global affiliate marketplace is a great solution for independent blog owners (Publishers) like me and you to connect with affiliate programs offered by thousands of online brands.

You can simply sign up for a free account and start using this network. I also have a tutorial below to help you understand how to use it.

Once you are signed up, complete your profile to ensure you get fast approval for any affiliate program via CJ.

Now, click on get links and you can either search for your target affiliate program via Advertiser list as shown in below image, or you can click on general categories to browse new affiliate programs. They pay via Check or direct bank deposit.

Get CJ Affiliate Links
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One thing which I like about Commission Junction is you can easily select a product based on different niche.

Especially if you are one of those who are running different niche blog, you can pick niche based product which you can put into your blog and make a huge commission.

Remember last time when I talked about GoDaddy affiliate program, if you are a part of Commission Junction, you can quickly apply for it. Along with it, if you are interested into other hosting products, you can quickly apply for best WordPress hosting companies like Hostgator, BlueHost and so on.

Here is a screenshot of various categories which you can use to find the best products for affiliate promotion.

One major advantage of using CJ is, usually pay per sale is high in comparison to the affiliate via direct product site.

Affiliate Category niche
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Affiliate Automation with CJ Affiliate :

One of the biggest challenges we face as a blogger is to get the individual affiliate links for products we are mentioning on our blog and due to this, we lose out a big chunk of revenue.

CJ by Conversant is one popular affiliate marketplace where you will find all the top products and now they have added a new feature call Automation. This feature is probably the simplest way you can monetize your commercial links without manually editing your old links.

The new automation feature will let you add a simple line of JavaScript on your Website and it will automatically convert your outbound links into affiliate links. Below is a diagram which shows how automation works:

affiliiate automation
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affiliiate automation

This feature is indeed a great addition by the CJ team, but I don’t find it as effective as Viglink or Skimlinks. Reason being, that there are few terms which needs to be satisfied before this automation will deep link your existing link into affiliate link. Here are the rules:

  • You need to have an active relation with CJ advertisers ( If you don’t have an active relation, this feature is useless for you)
  • Advertiser must have deep link integration and appropriate domains in CJAM in order to participate in Deep Link Automation.

Considering above two points, I find the automation feature as useless.

In this feature you can create a deep link affiliate link f0r any of CJ advertises you are associated with. All you need to do is, drag and drop the deep-link bookmarklet from this page to your bookmark browser, and on any of your associated CJ advertiser website ( Any page), you can click on bookmarklet to generate the direct link to the specific page. Here is a video which show this feature in detail:

Subscribe on YouTube

Again this feature seems to be useful for existing CJ affiliate marketers, but again one find print for this feature is:

  • You must have access to a deep link for the Advertiser in the CJ Account Manager

If you are looking forward to making some good money via Affiliate marketing, you should sign up for CJ and it’s free.

Here is a free started video training for Commission Junction:

Subscribe on YouTube

What other affiliate marketplaces would you suggest for others?

Don’t forget to subscribe to ShoutMeLoud newsletter for more affiliate marketing tips.

Also see:

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

58 thoughts on “A Beginner Guide To Commission Junction: CJ Affiliate Review”

  1. Praveen

    Hello harsh I want think to start cj with invoka . plz help me with this , I am a professional digital marketer. I want to know that cj pay in India. And plz guide me with this

  2. kushal

    hey harsh can we join more than one affiliate program and can place various products from different programs at a time on personal blog. ?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Kushal,

      Yes, we can do that. However, just one suggestion, promote only those products which you sincerely use and will recommend others.

  3. Foster

    Has anyone made some decent money using CJ? I started a small blog just as a side project after work and Adsense is making me little to no money. How much more potential does CJ have over Adsense (revenue)

  4. Satish

    Hi Harish,

    I read this review few days back and started working with CJ but seeing tracking is not realtime

    Can you please share your view on this,how much time it will take to update traccking

    TIA
    Satish

  5. ABHISHEK SUNERI

    HI, THANKS FOR THIS WONDERFUL TUTORIAL. I AM NEW TO CJ AFFILIATE AND HAVE PROBLEM WITH TAX INFORMATION FOR CJ AFFILIATE PROGRAM

    FOR NON-US AFFILIATE THEIR ARE TWO FORMS TO FILL. BUT I AM NOT SURE WHAT TO DO THESE THESE FORMS

    W-8BEN Certificate Of Foreign Status Of Beneficial Owner For United States Tax Withholding

    Certificate Of No United States Activities

    PLEASE GUIDE ME WHICH FORM SHOULD I FILL AND HOW?

    1. Akshay Nassa

      Hey there

      Choose the 2nd form which says “certificate of No United States Activities” and if you a get a problem with signature “just type your first name is small caps”

      Cheers

      1. April Smollet

        Is this the same if you are in Canada? When would the other non-US form be used? Thank you!!

  6. Ari

    Hi Harsh, I am new to CJ, I did my first campaign and got a 49% click through rate, but zero conversion. Is there a time delay when actual revenue and conversion rates are posted? It’s been 2 days. Thank you.

  7. Marc

    Kimi seems to be the only one actually making any money. How are you doing it?

    1. Benjamin

      Me too. Who actually makes money from CJ?

  8. Neha

    Hi Harsh, please let me know about the tax information in CJ fo Non-US person. What exactly needs to be filled in ? Need your help. TIA

  9. veenachlasani

    I have joined the commissionjunction account before a month,and also I have approved some advertising companies getting the HTML code how can I post the link to website? I tried so many times but din’t understand how to post. I am a graduate house wife. so please help me.

  10. Mahavir

    How much time it normally takes For Direct Transfer In India. In Panel its showing 18th But still not received in Bank Account.(Payment Mode : Direct Deposit)

  11. Debarup

    Hi Harsh,
    One simple question, how much visitors, pageviews need for getting minimum revenue from CJ or any other affiliate market places?

  12. NilanthaNRNM

    Thanks Harsh. An useful post about affiliate programs. I sign up with CJ just now. Your posts are very useful for me.

  13. Giri

    During sign up, I dont see INR in functional currency. Which currency should I choose?

  14. Vikas Yadav

    Hello Hasrh, I have listen good review about the CJ Affiliate by Conversant MarketPlace. I have a query that can you please tell me whether it offer affiliate product on the programming niche.

  15. Ishtiaque

    I applied for Expedia affiliate program through CJ. but still my application is pending for 12 days. Actually when I applied I did not add any travel related website, but now I have. I also contacted them through official website, but no answer. How can I deal with this problem? Any suggestion?

  16. Rahul @ MazaKaro

    Commission Junction is a perfect idea to be able to join various affiliate programs and feel good about a very easy payment method which just depends on only one system 🙂 !!

  17. aks

    Really commission junction is the biggest place for advertisers and affiliate publishers both.There are many reputed companies using this platform such as corel,adobe,godaddy ,serif etc.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Thanks aks for dropping by and for adding value with your comment.

  18. Kimi

    I have tried CJ, but i then stopped it.

    I tried with sharesales and it works better.

    What i don’t like from both of them is, they don’t pay via paypal =(

    It will be expensive for the transfer cost, unfortunately.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Kimi both of them send money via Check with 0 transfer cost..
      Also Both of them are different as CJ have more advertisers than Shareasale..
      I suggest while you look to promote new products,,check out both of them…

      1. Kimi

        Oh, thanks for clearing it up Harsh!

        I still hold from sharesales, because i haven’t faxed them my “non-US” thingy.

        That’s awesome with 0 transfer cost!

      2. Yatin Kumar

        after long time i associated with cj.com as a publisher.. i make $114 commission amount.. but still not revived.. i don’t know whats the matter with it., 100 of mail i send to commission manager.. but not right suggestion for get amount of commission..

        harsj ji.. if you assist me to withdrawal commsion amount.. i very thankful to you…

  19. hubpk

    Harsh nice article on Affiliate Market.I am not using any Affiliate Program but i read article about Affiliate Market some blogger.This is best way to earn money on internet.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hubpk if you are not using any affiliate program, you should give it a shot. It might help you to boost your earning…

      Note: Try to comment with your real name, we don’t accept comment with blog name.. Will love to interact with real people 🙂

  20. Siva

    I use shareasale, CJ, linkshare . But CJ is good so far.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      I started using Shareasale and they are good too..What I like about them is reporting feature..
      CJ is nice but little complicated..Still CJ is one of the top marketplace for affiliate marketers…

      1. Azhar

        Hi Harsh Sir,
        I am new to join CJ. I want to know that Can I earn money with my portal in India?
        If Yes, Then Which bank account I have to link?

          1. ravi

            hello Harsh I am Ravi.. wanted to ask you something about Affiliate marketing .. i do not have any Knowledge about affiliate Programs…can i still make money online and how can i do that…which program should i start with.. please help

          2. Harsh Agrawal

            Hey Ravi,

            I would suggest you to first read as much about affiliate marketing online. then you need to find affiliate programs which are of your niche.

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