Dumping CJ

Obscured and ambiguous and incompetent

[loner]

I've been working with Commission Junction for about 18 months and am totally fed up. Just when I think they can't make themselves any harder to work with, they blow me away with more concentrated idiocy.

Anyone else have problems with these clowns?

I'm looking at LinkShare. I'd like to hear any success/war stories or recommendations.

[ccam96]

My biggest problem with them is that they don't stop merchants from bailing without paying. I'm no longer going to enter into any new relationships with merchants until they improve their policy regarding paying affiliates (oh, sorry.. "publishers" for the aristocrats)

I've had two merchants quit CJ and not pay us for their last months commissions. I've hounded CJ and they just point me to their Terms that states that they aren't responsible for non-payment.

What do we need them for then? Someone please remind me.

[skibum]

Have had great experiences with CJ but it's become a lot more work to use them lately now that the standard links can only be generated one at a time.

[gamiziuk]

I have had the best results with "Shareasale." Linkshare has been "okay." Have not made one penny from CJ - and they keep cancelling my account for no reason. Another place you may want to look at is called "Performics."

[malachite]

Dumped them a long time ago cos they seem to have an ongoing problem of not tracking sales properly. CJ always blamed someone other than themselves.

[Alex_Miles]

My one remaining merchant there ceased tracking a week ago.

Usually if you swap out one account id for a new one they start tracking again. Wondering whether I can be bothered.

It was an excellent merchant but now they have a new AM, and when I told her she seemed to had a parasitic download scumware affiliate she assured me that this was impossible 'because CJ screen out parasiteware'.

If the CEO doesn't strangle her, I might.

[cabowabo]

Unless you are a "Super Affiliate" you will run into problems with any network. It is a hard lesson to learn, but they don't care about you. They care about the money. Years ago when my wife was sick, I took a few months off, and my status dropped from the "5-bar" and you would think that I had never done anything the way I was treated. Once I got the status back, I was back in the club.

Look at affiliate networks at pathetic "cliques" in junior high and that should sum it up for you on how to get to the top.

Cabo

[MrEricSir]

There's also the issue that their new Javascript links don't work in Firefox...

[cabowabo]

Don't get me started on their new Javascript links ... I HATE them.

[Essex_boy]

not tracking sales properly - Can you prove that? As I have suspected that previously, many people on here claim the same thing.

[cabowabo]

I think it is more of "cookie washing".

[Frequent]

I agree that their javascript links are a pain. It's even more of a pain that you have to pull the 'legacy' code through a couple of extra steps.

If they ever follow through with their threat to eliminate the non-lava link codes I'l drop them completely.

Freq---

[ganderla]

My issue is also with merchants not paying. I am owed several hundred dollars from one merchant who is huge. They still have their site up and still are taking leads but, still have not paid. It is ridiculous and when I have called CJ about it, they have no comment.

[loner]

Well, I don't trust CJ at all to report fairly. But a couple hundred a month is what it is- however, that is far less than what it was the first year of the program.

When I got into this junk I thought it would be like a store and if I sold a ##### then I would be able to see that I sold a ##### and tell what worked and didn't. I thought I would be able to track what items were returned and replace vendors selling poor quality when appropriate.

CJ's reports were garbage nearly right off the bat and now they look like some autistic kid scribbled on toilet paper.

I joined linkshare and will be developing new sites with the java page creator that some of the clients have. I suppose that things will be the same as with CJ in the long run. Oh well.

[cabowabo]

CJ is just a stepping stone anyway. You come in, dominate, and the merchant cuts you a private deal. Using CJ as a long term solution has certain death for an affiliate. They are making things far too difficult.

Cabo

[JessicaParnell]

Hi Loner,

There are other networks that offer oustanding customer service available to you 24/7.

I wish you all the success!

[edited by: skibum at 10:22 pm (utc) on Aug. 17, 2006]