Page Contents
- CJ Affiliate Review Summary
- What is CJ Affiliate?
- How Does CJ Affiliate Work?
- Inside CJ Affiliate
- Who Can Join CJ Affiliate and At What Cost?
- How to Earn From CJ Affiliate
- Payment Terms and Methods
- CJ Affiliate Ugly Truth Revealed!
- Who is CJ Affiliate Best Fit For?
- What I Like About CJ Affiliate
- What I Don’t Like About CJ Affiliate
- Is CJ Affiliate a Scam?
- Who Have Started Their Online Business
Joining a decent and reliable network is very important if you want to earn a sustainable income through Affiliate Marketing. And having you here in my blog only means that you are looking for that trustworthy platform to pursue your affiliate marketing career. Gladly, in this review, we will talk about one of the oldest and biggest affiliate networks in the market.
Either new or long-time affiliate marketer, you may have probably heard about CJ Affiliate, which is also formerly known as Commission Junction, and you are itching to know how it goes. Many issues, both positive and negative, have been raised about this affiliate marketing network in the past years, and you may be wondering now how this 10 year old platform has resolved those issues, whether they have already learned from their mistakes or not, and how this platform works.
In this CJ Affiliate Review, I will walk you through the processes involved in this platform, show you some real user reviews and how the business grew from a bad reputation to its current operational state.
Or if you want to start investing your time, money and effort into Affiliate Marketing and devote into a trusted platform, you can check out my top recommended product now, experience the precise boost of your career and skip the misery of testing out all programs and jumping from one platform to another.
CJ Affiliate Review Summary
Name: CJ Affiliate
Website: https://www.cj.com/
Owner: Alliance Data
President: Mayuresh Kshetramade
Type: Affiliate Marketing
Price: Free Trial + Quote-Based Plan
Legit/Scam: Legit
Summary: Previously known as Commission Junction, CJ Affiliate is an online advertising company and affiliate marketplace that connects Advertisers and Publishers; providing affiliate marketers access to thousands of products from advertisers’ and popular brands to promote and make money.
Recommended: It depends
What is CJ Affiliate?
Formerly known as Commission Junction, CJ Affiliate by Conversant is one of the oldest online advertising companies and affiliate network owned by Alliance Data. It is also founded and established on 1998 in Santa Barbara, California. The company is operating in the affiliate marketing industry with 15 corporate offices in USA and United Kingdom. The company dedicates their services in delivering innovative solutions and strategies to their customers, aiming to provide successful results. They also take pride in becoming one of the business partners of Publicis Media Groupe in offering a customer-centered approach to the affiliate marketing industry. The business has also gained a good A+ rating under the Better Business Bureau website.
CJ Affiliate has been working hard on maintaining their good reputation so that their customers and future members will have the confidence to invest in their services. However, just like any other companies, CJ Affiliate has encountered some issues that lead to losing the trust of some affiliate marketers. I have found some real customer reviews with regards to CJ Affiliate’s services and we will look at some of these reviews on the later part of this review. So, sit tight and just keep reading.
How Does CJ Affiliate Work?
CJ Affiliate has two types of accounts:
- The Advertiser and,
- The Publisher
The advertiser account is for businesses that offer products and services while the publisher account is for us, affiliate marketers. And since we are looking forward to going over this platform on the affiliate marketing side, we will talk more about becoming CJ Affiliate’s publisher or affiliate marketer.
CJ Affiliate offers a free publisher account sign-up for you to start using their platform and get access to the products from its partner advertisers. After your account is approved, you will then be asked to complete your profile to ensure fast approval of any affiliate programs inside CJ. You will also be given your own customer ID and access to the index of advertisers.
Inside CJ Affiliate
To be successful in affiliate marketing and make money online, it is very important for you to find the right products to promote. Unlike other networks that offer products form a specific niche, CJ Affiliate offers a wide range of products in different niches, allowing you to choose the number of products that are most relevant to your market.
Some of the niches range from accessories, art/photo/music, books, beauty, clothing, computers, education, food, games, toys, health and wellness, home and garden, online services, sports, telecommunications and others.
With their wide range of niches, you will able to find products to promote no matter what kind of niche you prefer.
Unlike other platforms, it will take a little more time for you to get used to its features so I will help you learn them here.
To find for affiliate programs that you can join and products to promote and start earning in CJ Affiliate, you will have to take note of the following steps below:
- Program Search
On the “Advertisers” tab, you will find a list of all the advertisers in CJ. To find relevant programs and products to promote, you can either go through all the available products, search by specific keywords, or use the search filters.
- Program Selection
After applying your preferred search option, you will now have access to a list of programs or products that you can choose from. You will see a summary of the market performance of the program or advertiser you searched for and have access to more information regarding the program when you click on them.
- Program Application
In order for you to start promoting the products of the advertiser you have chosen, you will have to apply for that specific program. Some of the approvals will take a few days to be processed while some can be approved immediately. When approved, you can now grab your very own affiliate link and start promoting the products.
- Managing Rejection
Some advertisers set a certain criteria in approving publisher applications, so there will be times that you will be rejected to a program, which can really be sad especially when you really wanted to join and promote that specific advertiser’s products. What you can do whenever that happens is to find the contact information or customer support of the advertiser from their own website, message them with your interest in promoting their product, why you would like to be their partner, and how you can be a great help to them. Also, do not forget to include the link to your own website in your message. To be able to connect with your advertiser, don’t give up and continue to reach out. You will also have the chance to re-apply when you gain more points and comply to their criteria.
Who Can Join CJ Affiliate and At What Cost?
Joining CJ Affiliate is open to any country, with no initial requirements to comply. However, the availability of some programs and products may differ from one country to another.
There is also one distinguished requirement for everyone to be successfully accepted as a member of CJ Affiliate, and that is to have your own website. If you don’t have your own website, you will not be qualified to join the network.
And most importantly, CJ Affiliate is free to join. So whether you just wanted to check out how this platform goes, then you can join them for free and see how the programs and products inside CJ are relevant to your line of business.
However, joining different affiliate programs has a cost. The price, however, varies from one advertiser to another.
How to Earn From CJ Affiliate
There are two ways for a Publisher to earn from CJ Affiliate:
- Cost-per-Sale Advertising
As a publisher, you will get paid when buyers decide to buy the products and services you are promoting with the use of your website’s engaging and useful content. Affiliate programs will pay you in exchange of a sale derived from your efforts.
- Cost-per-Lead Advertising
As publishers, you will be also paid when you will be able to provide relevant information about a sales lead to the advertiser. Cost-per-lead advertising involves paying you in exchange of relevant information such as the name, email, phone number, and some answers to a few questions from the affiliate program’s target lead.
Payment Terms and Methods
The payment terms of CJ Affiliate are quite complicated, and this is the part where most customers complain with. Payment is made by the advertiser itself, while CJ is the bridge between the publisher and the advertiser. CJ will be the one to bill advertisers for payments to the publishers. However, payment failures take place when advertisers fail to deposit to their CJ accounts or there is an issue between the publisher and advertiser. When these issues occur, there is a high chance that you won’t be paid.
When everything else is well, CJ processes payments every 20th of the month.
CJ Affiliate Ugly Truth Revealed!
Just like any other business, CJ Affiliate has faced a lot of negative reviews from customers with regards to their lack of support, account deactivation, and others. Let us look at some user reviews for the year 2019:
The issues of CJ deactivating accounts without prior notice, lack of customer support, and not paying their affiliates with the right amount are going around the internet for how many years now. Being in the business for 20 years, I think CJ Affiliate should take into action these concerns before their reputation will become affected.
These user reviews are quite serious, and before investing your time and effort to CJ Affiliate, we should be considering these reviews and take heed of the issues.
Who is CJ Affiliate Best Fit For?
CJ Affiliate is best fit for those affiliate marketers who already has an established affiliate marketing business or existing businesses that already has a good standing in the business.
If you want to start affiliate marketing and earn good pay even if you are still starting and do not have a website yet, I have a good product for you. You do not have to worry about having a website first because in this platform, you will be taught to build your own business and website even from scratch. Check it out now and start for free!
What I Like About CJ Affiliate
Some things that I like about CJ Affiliate include:
- Offers a wide range of products under various niches
- Has a directory of many reputable advertisers
- Free Sign-up
- Operational Website
What I Don’t Like About CJ Affiliate
And these are the things that I don’t like about CJ Affiliate:
- Inconsistent and uncontrolled payment schedule and terms
- Account deactivation without warning
- Poor customer support
- Approval of affiliate program application varies according to your account’s milestone
Is CJ Affiliate a Scam?
No, CJ Affiliate is definitely not a scam. If it were, it won’t be surviving the business for 2 decades. However, I can only recommend CJ Affiliate to affiliate marketers who are already established in the field, those who have already made a name for themselves in this industry. It is also good for risk-takers, those who would want to try things out without having the assurance if it will work in their favor or not.
But for those who want to pursue affiliate marketing even from scratch, you can check out my top recommended product now. You won’t have to worry if it will give you a good future or not, because this platform will surely help you achieve your dreams.
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Allysa Jane
Allysa is a passionate article/content writer with proven efficiency, quality, creativity, and uniqueness. She recently joined Internet Scams Report as a writer.