Commission Junction...

[Bubzeebub]

Where do I go to sign up to become an affiliate partner with them? Can't seem to find the area on their site. Also, for those out there that are dealing with CJ, what are your thoughts on them?

[angmi90]

You can find the publisher application here [signup.cj.com].

I use CJ affiliate links on my site and I really have not had much luck with them. I've moved away from CPA ads and moved into CPC and CPM. I make a lot more with CPC and CPM ads that I ever did with CPA.

[GerBot]

Where do I go to sign up to become an affiliate partner with them?

You know, I couldn't find that the other day either.
I ended up joining through an advertiser link.

Also, for those out there that are dealing with CJ, what are your thoughts on them?

I personally don't like CJ.com, I think they have lost track of their original business model.
CJ “should” be the middle man fostering business relationships between affiliates and advertisers.

CJ consider that their relationships are:
CJ > Advertisers
CJ > Affiliates

when it should be
Advertisers < > CJ < > Affiliates

As you can see they do not consider that Affiliates and Advertiser have any direct relationship

What is the problem with this?
Even if an Advertiser and Affiliate are looking to do business together CJ might decide they don’t agree and not allow the relationship to exist.

[Bubzeebub]

so who's better?

[GerBot]

If you plan on making >$500/month with each advertiser you should look for an in-house program.

This way you're dealing with the advedrtiser directly and will also avoid the 35% CJ cut.

[gamiziuk]

CJ seems to have a habit of dropping Affiliates without warning. This happenned to me. Fortunately, I am also an affiliate with Linkshare. Once in a while a Linkshare merchant will drop me, but I never heard of the Linkshare network completely dropping a publisher/affiliate without warning.

[Bubzeebub]

Do they do affiliate programs for high end products? I mean, I see a lot of programs for low end stuff like DVD's, CD's, etc. but what about real estate, cars, laptop computers?

[gamiziuk]

Linkshare offers merchants such as Sharper Image, WalMart, and Target. You can pretty much offer ANYTHING on your site with these merchants. Cars are offered with Ford. I don't recall the Real Estate off the top of my head.

[Bubzeebub]

The thing I'm skeptical about is this:

1) Those sites are very well-known, well-branded

What would make someone go through your site and buy many products those other sites have to offer? I would imagine that most would just go directly there unless these big companies advertise special deals exclusively with the affiliate partners

[webmastertexas]

I've never sold a single product through CJ. Not a single product through Linkshare, either. I find that it's easier, and you have more control if you go with individual affiliates, i.e Amazon, rather than go through a third party network like CJ/Linkshare. Then again, there are people here who makes thousands of them, so there you go.

[rfung]

webmastertexas:

I find that odd that you were not able to pull in a single sale from the many CJ merchants. If you have any sort of affiliate revenue (as opposed to Adsense) then it wouldn't make a difference wether the sale is tracked through an in house program or CJ's.

Or, if you can't pull off a sale, then the merchant/product was not targetted to your site's market?

Just wondering.

[webmastertexas]

>>Or, if you can't pull off a sale, then the merchant/product was not targetted to your site's market?<<

Oh, trust me, they're targeted alright. I have a movie site, and all the ads I used were movie ads. But not a single sale. Not one. I know, it's really strange, and I was flabbergasted. Anyways, I've since switched over to other affiliates, and have done wonders. Go figure.

[tsinoy]

>What would make someone go through your site and buy many products those other sites have to offer? I would imagine that most would just go directly there unless these big companies advertise special deals exclusively with the affiliate partners

My thoughts are, the notion of not knowing is one of the reasons why people would go through your site. ie. "oh <well known company name> also sell this stuff? oh ok I'll buy it from them since they are a well known company anyways."

[rfung]

Besides, you'd be amazed at how un-knowledgeable most people using the internet can be.

[annej]

Tesas, What affiliates did you switch too?

I've decided I prefer affiliates who run their own affiliate program.