Forum Moderators: skibum
"Effective July 1, 2001, Commission Junction will begin openly publishing payment and conversion statistics on ads, advertisers and publishers within our network, effectively creating the first Open Marketplace for pay-for-performance advertising."
Although that is pretty cool, they will be phasing out their pay per click offers. They are also raising their rates to merchants. This will either be very, very good for webmasters or be a backlash to some merchants. However, I think any kind of move to pay per sale or lead is a good one....revenue sharing is usually a win-win situation if done correctly.
Biggest changes:
As JamesR already stated, no more CPC programs, period. Effective August 1.
Much higher costs for merchants:
Raising the transaction fees from 20% to 30%.
A new minimum $.30 transaction fee per lead or sale.
And the big plus, the Open Marketplace, where CJ will openly publish EPC, Earnings Per Hundred Clicks for merchants and affiliates. So now, you will already know how well a program converts before joining, and merchants will know your track record when considering you as an affiliate.
What will this mean? Fewer merchants (and certainly an uproar from many of them) due to the dropping of CPC, but mainly due to the new transaction fee minimum. Many lead-based merchants already have lead commissions at/around/less than $.30. This will effectively kill their programs, unless they can improve ROI quickly.
Many merchants will go to their own in-house program, which is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as they are honest, and affiliates can accrue enough earnings to receive payments at payout time, this could actually be beneficial. I have several independent programs outperforming CJ by far.
Why is CJ doing this? One reason - survival. I am glad to see them taking the necessary measures to be there for the long haul. This will greatly affect many affiliates, including myself, but I see these types of measures being required for long-term success of CJ. It will hurt them in some ways, but I think the benefits will outweigh the negatives, and I feel they know what is required in order to be profitable. Kudos to them for being proactive in this volatile market.
I have noticed a few new CPC (legit new, I think) merchants lately. What is their ploy? Getting in to email all affiliates that join about their soon-to-open in-house program? Going to switch to %sale or lead after Aug.1?
I really like having the EPC data on merchants, since it helps identify programs to join and feature and also programs to avoid. Plus you get data on each link so you can pick the best performing banner or text link to advertise. Although it would be really nice to have clicks/impression or earnings/impression data as well as the EPC, to really be able to identify the best performing links/merchants.
To browse the best performing advertisers, click on the "Browse for Advertisers" link at the bottom of the main page. Then click on the link at the top of the 3 Month EPC column to list advertisers in order of EPC. I was able to find a few new advertisers that fit with my site's content, that have excellent earnings potential.
It really seems like CJ is trying to educate and empower publishers to push more profitable affiliate links. But it makes a lot of sense for them to help us earn more, since they make 30% of what we earn.
CJ seems to really be cleaning up their system, dropping fraud-laden CPC programs, only dealing with merchants who can produce decent earnings for themselves and affiliates, and offering performance info for advertisers and publishers about each other.
It is great to finally see a plus with all the negative changes as of late. I bet a few other networks will start offering this type of data soon.
Good job CJ.
Ditto, and I think it's going to trigger a wholesale exodus of branding/deadwood merchants. I'm a little concerned that it will make it more likely for a merchant to deny an affiliate request because it's a low performing site.
>...deny an affiliate request because it's a low performing site
I have been thinking about this. I have been denied a couple good ones lately, that I bet would let me in had they seen my current ratings.
However, "low" is certainly relative. I have heard of some seriously rock-bottom publisher ratings - I doubt you (or any serious affiliate) are anywhere near those.
What I really started wondering though, is would merchants really not want to accept some of the low ranking affiliates? For cheap branding? But it would lower their own ranking, though. Hmmm... doubtful, but still, food for thought.
>seriously rock-bottom publisher ratings - I doubt you (or any serious affiliate) are anywhere near those.
Well, here's a scenario that applies to me that might -in turn- reduce my ratings. I have sites that generate tons of very specific traffic. The users visit the site for one thing and then 'look around' with decidedly less focused interests. I put affiliate links that might interest them, but since they are secondary to the original intent (which drove the high pageviews) the CTR is very low.
You should still be ok, since CJ bases it's ratings on EPC (earnings per click), because impressions aren't taken into consideration. If the CR is low on the clicks you do get, that can hurt you. As long as your text links are informatively labeled, you should be fine.
OK, good. Thanks. I haven't had a chance to dig into much of it yet.
from what i understand all publisher ratings are set to "new" for the first 3 months
so with the power tools CJ have given publishers the only excuse's that i can see for a low EPC at the end of that 3 months is ignorance (not "digging in" to CJs new site) or low traffic
although there are still some branding/deadwood (and some are absolutely scandalous) advertisers left i think the majority will leave before August 1st when the new agreement kicks in properly
although the CJ forum is splattered with questions/complaints about reversals, some in jest that these advertisers are now exposed, and some deadly serious, i feel very positive about the new CJ and i sincerely belive this will truly kickstart the the internet global economy :)
I'll bet!
Looking at my stats page, if I'm reading it properly, I'm OK for now...
Network Earnings: $$$$$
3 month EPC $2.74
7 day EPC $3.11
Anyone finding the new (EPC,etc) data to be useful? I haven't dug around CJ much since the changes - have been working direct programs recently. I usually wait for bugs and other system problems to work out before taking a close look. Things should be stabilizing by now.
One problem I see, is publishers joining the high EPC advertisers, who aren't really related to their site. This then brings the EPC down. This could be eliminated by advertisers carefully selecting their publishers, but many auto-accept.
Anybody feel any different about CJ now?
Though it's not necessarily relate to CJ in particular, I'm using this down cycle to retool for skyscrapers.
