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:
- What is Affiliate marketing
- PartnerStack Review: Affiliate Marketplace For SAAS Products And Growing Companies
- The Handbook To Affiliate Marketing
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.
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.
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 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:
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.
Deep Link generator feature:
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:
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:
What other affiliate marketplaces would you suggest for others?
Don’t forget to subscribe to ShoutMeLoud newsletter for more affiliate marketing tips.
Also see:
- Discover A New Affiliate Program With Free Affilitizer Chrome Addon
- List of Travel Affiliate Programs For Travel Bloggers
Hi, The most difficult task for me( advertiser) to find good publisher on Pet Supplies Niche. Can you please suggest how can i recruit more publisher? & how to build up good relationship with publishers?
Thanks for the information. I keep trying to sign up as a CJ affiliate and have sent me email several times, but I never receive the link they say they have sent. What should I do next? Thanks.
@Vanessa
1. Did you check your spam folder?
2. Try reaching to their customer support, that should help.
Hi,
I want to join your team for affiliate marketing but need some guidance exactly how to proceed.
Thanks
@Santosh
You can join ShoutUniversity Affiliate marketing course
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/recommended/Shoutuniversityaff/
Hi sir, I’m in a problem with Tax information on cj affiliate program. How to give the tax information and payment information of my account in cj. Please help me sir, Harsh Agarwal.
Hi Harsh
You are awesome blogger
I red all your post and review about many affiliate sites
You are short and precise blogger
Google also recommended you as a most helpful blogger to educate people
Continue your awesome online business and service
Thank you
Hi! I’m from Romania. Could I use CJ affiliate as a publisher? I started a blog and I wrote in Romanian. Does CJ have advertisers from Romania? I mean… I don’t think Romanian people generally will buy many things from USA or another country, but from Romania. I’d be very grateful if you could answer me! Thank you!
Hi harsh,
Great post. just thought to point it out that it was written in 2014 but still this post is as good as new.
Just signed up using your sign up link. Thank you very much.
Also one request if you could make a case study on BuySellAds 2017 it would be very helpful.
Regards,
Ranjeet
Hey! I have never tried cj. I think, it’s time to try it out.
Hi,
How to fill up CJ Tax form & Payment methods as individual CJ publisher for indian?
Help
May I ask if someone click my product link but don’t buy it but buy another product from the company web wil I still earn my commission?
@Bj
Yes, you will earn commission in this scenario. Another benefit of Affiliate marketing.
I have a wordpress.com website and i cannot find where to input the adsense html code.Must it be a wordpress.org to be able to do adsense?
Hey Lewis,
You guessed it right. For Adsense you need to have wordpress.org
To put your adsense code go to widgets select text column and put your adsense code their and save it.
@HARSH Is it necessary to have a functional website or blog to make a CJ account ? I have one which is not yet functional, but I have a good presence on my Facebook page. Can we use that URL instead ?
I live in India, what country and currency should I choose ? since you suggest USD. Also I can not find my category listed, what should I do ?
Too bad CJ Affiliate only paid with check and direct deposit, no paypal, no payoneer, ect.
Great Topic about affiliate marketing. Nice information about CJ.
Hi Harsh,
I am new here and would like to know how long time it takes for CJ to approve an affiliate request?
Thank you
Hey Daniella,
A well-managed program usually takes 2-3 days. However, if you have not received a response, you should find the contact info of the program and contact the affiliate manager.
hellow sir please a little bit confusion . Sir i am working as publisher on CJ and i mostly send traffic through social Media . but i am not sending my traffic directly first on my site than its goes on CJ Advertiser links. sir now a days i have got mail from CJ that your payout has been decline and we will take little bit time to confirm your traffic. And by the way my organic traffic is zero . Now what will CJ do will they reverse my commision
I made couple of hundred dollars with Max Bounty, they are good to pay.
Now I am using only Amazon affiliate links, l like amazon more than Max Bounty.
Thanks for sharing your article!