Promoting products on your blog is a great way to earn online income. Joining reputable affiliate programs can help you do that. Chances are you have come across a lot of CJ Affiliate reviews. In this CJ Affiliate review, we’ll explore just how reputable this company is as well as the pitfalls. You’ll want to read this first before you join. You’ve been warned!
What is CJ Affiliate?
CJ Affiliate is an advertising network company that connects publishers and advertisers and is an online and offline marketing company. CJ Affiliate is also known as Commission Junction and was founded in 1998 in Santa Barbara, CA and they are a Fortune 500 company with 15 offices worldwide. They also have an office in London. It was purchased by Alliance Data in 2014. They have an A+ rating with the BBB as well.
How Does CJ Affiliate Work?
CJ Affiliate connects advertisers with publishers just like many other advertising networks with a few exceptions. Once you are a member of CJ Affiliate, you will have to apply to advertisers individually in order to promote their product. This is in stark contrast to the way other advertising networks work. Other networks such as Maxbounty.com, Traffic Jam Media and iGain.com don’t necessarily require you to do this for all their advertisers.
CJ Affiliate Features
As another advertising network, CJ Affiliate has similar features to other networks. So let’s check it out.
- Easy to become a member
- Plenty of advertisers to choose from
- You can customize your campaigns with widgets
- Recognizable brand
- Customized search tools for finding advertisers by specific country
- Set up mobile ads
- Flexible banner and sidebar sizes
- Transaction and performance reports
How Much Does CJ Affiliate Cost?
It’s free to join CJ Affiliate but there are a few potential costs. If you allow your account to have a negative balance, CJ Affiliate will charge you to bring your account back up to zero. And if you don’t, you can be charged 1.5% interest per month, compounded monthly.
How Much Can Publishers Make With CJ Affiliate?
As with any advertising network, the amount of money you make is subject to the amount of traffic your site gets and the amount of commissions you make from advertisers. And each advertiser will have a different commission rate. So with that in mind, you may want to check out Wealthy Affiliate which will teach you step-by-step how to get tons of FREE traffic and will show you how to earn more money with your website with CJ Affiliate or any other network.
How Does CJ Affiliate Pay You?
In order to be paid, you have to have a minimum balance of $50 for direct deposits and $100 for live checks. CJ Affiliate does not have any other payment method–not even Paypal.
CJ Affiliate Requirements
To join this affiliate network you’ll have to meet some of the following:
- CJ Affiliate is available in most countries.
- You must be 18 years of age to join.
- You need to have a website that does not promote gambling or adult content.
- In order to maintain an active account, you have to maintain a balance and/or log in within a 30 day period. Otherwise, your account can be terminated.
How To Join CJ Affiliate
To join CJ Affiliate, complete the signup form at this location: https://signup.cj.com/member/signup/publisher/#/?_k=nr1nlu
CJ Affiliate Login
To log into CJ Affiliate, go to this link: https://www.cj.com/login.
CJ Affiliate Support
Support is available Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Their phone number is 800-761-1072.
What We Like About CJ Affiliate
So we’ve talked a lot about the ins and outs of CJ Affiliate so far. Now we’ll talk about what we think is good about this program.
Variety of Companies and Brands
CJ Affiliate works with well known companies and brands. This makes it easier for you to connect with your audience. Chances are your audience has already heard of the brand you are promoting.
Customizable Product Widgets
Publishers can avail of product widgets that are customizable allowing you to further monetize you campaign.
Excellent Reporting Tools
Analytics and reporting insight tools to track campaign progress depending on placement.
Content Certification Program
Your site has to meet certain criteria in order to join this program. But once certified, you will get assistance from the CJ team and you will be able to partner with name brands. Publishers who complete this program have the added advantage of learning how to maximize content for their readers and further increase their online income.
Publisher Longevity
Many publishers have been members of CJ Affiliate for seven years or more.
If you are really successful at promoting advertisers at CJ Affiliate, you might be interested in their CJ University event held each year in Santa Barbara, CA. While approximately 40% of attendees are advertisers, 15.4% are publishers. But it should be noted that this is a by-invitation event.
CJ Affiliate Complaints
There are plenty of things we like about CJ Affiliate. But there are some things that give us pause. It’s up to you to decide if the following are deal breakers for you or not.
Poor Customer Service
According to our research, there have been many complaints of poor customer service for publishers. In some cases, publishers had no response at all.
Affiliate Programs Discontinued
In some cases, affiliate programs are discontinued without notifying the publisher. This means that ads are still active on a publisher’s site but the publisher isn’t getting the commission for sending visitors to the advertiser. Not cool!
Dormant Account Status
If your account is dormant for 6 months or more, CJ Affiliate can deactivate your account without warning.
Negative Balance Account Penalty
And if you have a negative balance in your account, you are obligated to pay CJ Affiliate to bring your account back up to zero. If not, you can incur 1.5% interest per month, compounded monthly.
Limited Payment Options
You can only be paid by direct deposit or check. No Paypal feature.
So some of these complaints may be a bit of a turn off. Fortunately, there are other options that are similar or better. You might want to check out:
Either way, in order to make any kind of money with your site using these networks, you need to have decent traffic. If your site isn’t getting enough traffic or you want more of it, you might want to check out Wealthy Affiliate. You will learn how to make more money by getting tons of free traffic to your website with their step-by-step training program.
Should You Join CJ Affiliate?
While this is a legitimate program with a long relatively positive history, but are plenty of reasons to hit the brakes on this one. Their policy on dormant accounts or negative account balances isn’t favorable for publishers. So you may be better off with other affiliate networks such as Traffic Jam Media, iGain.com and Maxbounty.com.
Traffic is always an issue no matter what program you are in and you can never have too much, right? If you want to get more traffic to your website, you might want to join Wealthy Affiliate which will teach you how to get loads of free traffic and help you make more money with your website.
Well, that’s all for now, folks. If you want to know more about CJ Affiliate check out their FAQ page here. If you are already a member of CJ Affiliate, I’d love to read your comments and experiences below.
Until next time,
Eddy with a y
CJ.com Review
What a great review on CJ Affiliate. I like a lot of things this company offers but really makes me nervous with the poor customer service and definitely do like being charged for the negative balance. What exactly would cause you to have a negative balance and what is their reasoning for charging you to bring it current?
Never heard about CJ affiliate before but good information to know. My only turn off is the no PayPal feature. Not everyone will feel comfortable giving out their bank info online. In addition, what about people who live outside the US. Will they be able to received checks i the mail?
Yeah I agree the lack of paypal is annoying. I feel like that should be a standard option.
What a great review on CJ Affiliate. I like a lot of things this company offers but really makes me nervous with the poor customer service and definitely do like being charged for the negative balance. What exactly would cause you to have a negative balance and what is their reasoning for charging you to bring it current?
How long does it take also to hear back from advertising companies once you apply?
I don’t know. That’s something you may want to contact CJ.com about. The amount of time it takes an advertiser to get back to you will vary depending on the company. Some are quicker than others.
This is a great review. I have used CJ Affiliate in the past but it was when I was just starting out and honestly the entire experience wasnt great for me.
That doesnt mean its bad or anything like that. It just means it wasnt for me. Now that I am now deeper into my business I may take another look and see if it works better for my business.
Dale
Yeah I felt the same way about CJ. I had some poor experiences with them as well. So I moved on.
I know CJ has been around a long time. That speaks to its reliability. But some practices seem to lag the newer companies. For physical products, commissions can’t be worse than Amazon. For digital, an aggregator like Offervault is worth a look. There are so many options today. I hope CJ can modernize in those ways that can help us Affiliate marketers. Like the payment processing, for instance.
I agree with your suggestions of improvements for CJ. Thanks for chiming in.