does CJ work for anybody?

commission junction not good

[joefrank]

Howdy- Is anyone actually making money from Commission Junction? I have given them 1200 clicks and around 10000 impressions over the past 3 months and have yet to see penny 1. What gives? It is very frustrating because I have some good, relevant ads that I would get paid for is they were showing up with adsense (who I do ok with). Anyone?

Also, does anyone work with a PPC network that serves decent relevant banners? I really feel like I am missing an opportunity here.

Thanks!

[flobaby]

It depends. I have one website centered around web stuff, and not one of the advertisers I've got on there (web hosting, ISPs, etc.) have converted. I read a few accounts of web host companies not honoring sales, so I'm about to remove all those links.

OTOH, I have one CJ merchant (in a different field) that converts for me regularly, so all I need is more of those (I say smirking, because if it were that easy I'd be rich).

[Rachel]

I think it'll really depend on the merchants you choose.

I have two that are converting okay at this point (I'm still learning the best way to promote them), and another handful that haven't brought in anything. I have managed to get a direct deposit from CJ every month, though, so it's a start.

If the merchant(s) you have now aren't converting, pick some others to try.

[joefrank]

Wow! Well I am glad they are working for somebody.

Was there a delay between the time you started using them and the time you actually started to see conversions in your account? (Obviously there has to be some delay... I am just wondering how long yours was.)

thanks again for the feedback!

[zivkovicp]

I am also wondering about CJ...

I have similar stats, a site of mine has been displaying thousands of impressions of very highly related advertising... resulting in over 20% click thru.

I have not seen a single penny of commissions. I thought maybe it's a poor performing merchant, so I switched and still nothing even after several hundred click thrus.

Not only that, but this morning I went to check my stats and I got this message:

"Our records indicate that your account has been deactivated."

It looks like they kicked me out or something!?!?
The worst part is that I've been sending traffic to them for months without any positive effect... thank goodness my adsense was at least generating some income.

The worst part is that I can't find ANY support email on their website. I have to say that I'm dissapointed. On the bright side, my traffic is all SE traffic so at least I didn't have to waste money advertising a lost cause.

(my rant is done.)

[ChrisSanderson]

Hi

I agree with the above commens, it depends a lot more on the merchants you work with and how they fit with your site than the network itself.

The conversion time will vary a lot depending on the products too, the more high the slower and lower the conversion as people will do more online research and windown shopping before making a purchase

Cheers

Chris

[flobaby]

Was there a delay between the time you started using them and the time you actually started to see conversions in your account? (Obviously there has to be some delay... I am just wondering how long yours was.)

When I started, I was doing PPC to merchant (the one that converts) and after a week, I gave up. I'd made my cost but no profit.

Then, about 2 weeks later, I got a big commission on someone who had clicked my link that first week but had waited to buy. That sold me! Suddenly it was "Aha! now I get this affiliate stuff."

Since then, I've switched to landing pages which are now sporadically populating the regular SERPS, so I'm beginning to get natural traffic as well.

[Rachel]

I started seeing conversions pretty much immediately. I signed up at CJ on the 25th of February, and hit their monthly minimum payout before the end of the month. This is not to say that I'm raking in the cash, though. :) I made $25.05 in February, $60 in March, and $71.40 in April.

Still, seeing any amount of money coming in is encouraging, and I just have to keep tweaking pages and trying new programs while I'm learning.

[joefrank]

Great. This has been very helpful and I appreciate everyone's input. Sounds like my users just aren't buying!

thanks again.

[Rogi]

I haven't had any problems with CJ, always getting a rather consistent conversion rate with the merchants i'm promoting.

Linkshare on the other hand...

[TrustNo1]

Except for the recent "upgrade" which was one of their worst, I do great with CJ.

How are you sending the traffic? I'm a litte confused on that. Is it thru banners ads thru a PPC network?

[FourDegreez]

I'm doing okay, last month was ~$1,600 from CJ for me, my best month yet. =D

Drop programs that aren't working and try new ones. I can't say every program in CJ pays, but some certainly do.

[hannamyluv]

I make a good profit from CJ merchants, but I think outside the box when it comes to them. I tend to bottom feed. I find that too often people look only at those little green bars when choosing a CJ merchant. If they have 1 bar, I love them. It means that competition will be about zero for promoting them. It's worked out well so far and I am very much looking forward to xmas.

[anallawalla]

I second hannymyluv's approach. I don't do any PPC for CJ merchants, so I don't need to watch the EPC bar before picking a merchant. Performance has ranged from $0 through $2000+ per merchant (6 months) and this has come entirely from organic search result visitors.

[guitaristinus]

>>>Sounds like my users just aren't buying!

Commission Junction is good but many of the merchants are lousy. If I had 1200 clickthroughs and no sales, I would try another merchant.

[wellzy]

IMO it depends on the merchant. I do rather well with CJ for certain merchants, not so well with others.. I generally give them a month, check the stats, and move to another merchant if the conversions are low.

[kwngian]

Giving away 1200 clicks with no conversion is being too kind, isn't it?

Personally, I would have drop them halfway through that number if there is no sales unless the commission really justify it. For low cost items the threshold would be even lower.

[joefrank]

OK... so I have given away too many free clicks! ;) I agree actually, which is why the initial post. So, where do I turn? Is there a PPC network that allows the publisher to pick the advertiser? That is the good part of CJ at the moment; they have advertisers that my user like and will click on.... they just don't seem to buy.

Linkshare seemed really hokey to me and didn't have many "cool" advertisers.

[webdev]

I'm having major issues using the qksrv.net and anrdoezrs.net affiliate links - I'm getting reports of pages not being displayed and they load very slow..

[Fairla]

I do make some money from CJ. Most CJ advertisers I've tried don't work for me, but several do (this is not true of Linkshare, where I have found only one advertiser that works on my site).

Make sure you use CJ's encrypted links. And be aware that Norton firewall may be blocking your visitors from seeing CJ's links, even text links.

[webdev]

I'm using the link creation tool found here [affiliates.ebay.com...]

I don't see any option for the encrypted links - and through CJ link panel I can't find the option to create links to specific pages.

[guitaristinus]

joefrank,

Aren't there any other advertisers at CJ you can use?

[joefrank]

guitaristinus- I probably should try and mix it up. The three I have been using seem to resonate with my users (but don't seem to pay) and I fear the others won't do as well (in terms of clicks).

[Fairla]

There should be a way to encrypt the eBay links like other CJ links, but if so I haven't figured it out.

[badone]

Fairla: How are these encrypted? If you send me an example of an unencrypted and an encrypted link (preferably the same link) I might be able to work it out for you.

Sticky me if you want.

Cheers,
BAD

[metakomm]

I don't trust CJ sometimes. And I don't trust some of the merchants either...

[radix]

Hello joefrank et al.,

CJ definitely did not work for me.

According to my notes of Feb 2003 I had the following stats with them:
372,259 impr/7,498 clicks/4.5$ revenue
I don't really remember the period these stats cover, perhaps six months or so. Because of the <10$ in revenues I was booted by them soon after.

Did not bother me up to recently when I wanted to join again as I got new ideas. Arghh, just had to find out that my country (Hungary) is not on their list on the sign up form, and they don't disclose a guddam email to contact them. So, CJ is kept on my blacklist for a few more months or years.

You can read CJ horror stories on #*$!.com.

Cheers,

Radix.

[K, WebmasterWorldbot removed the website name. I'll PM it to you, if needed.]