Commission Junction Review

Pros and Cons - Commission Junction (CJ) has grown over the last year to be one of the largest affiliate program networks. They boast over 1700 merchants and still growing. There are a variety of reasons why CJ has been able to grow so quickly.

First, they offer very competitive pricing for their merchants, compared to competing networks like BeFree and LinkShare. This has allowed CJ to not only sign up some big-name web properties, but also attract dozens of more smaller, more targeted, niche merchants. Second, CJ has continuously improved their own affiliate program to provide more benefits to affiliates, and encourage them to help grow the CJ network.

The foundation of the CJ affiliate program is their two-tier commission plan. What this means is that as an affiliate, you are able to earn commissions in two ways for referring new webmasters to the CJ network. First, if the person you refer goes on to join CJ (either to promote CJ directly or one of thousands of merchants), you will earn a $2 up-front referral bounty.

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Second, thereafter, for as long as that person remains a CJ affiliate member, you will earn 5% of the commissions they generate for themselves. It should be noted that the referral bounty and 5% residual commissions are only applicable for new affiliates that you refer to CJ. If they were already CJ members, you will not earn these commissions. 

CJ offers a variety of other benefits to affiliates. First, unlike many of the other affiliate networks, commissions earned from all merchants are pooled together in one check, and you are paid monthly by CJ directly (not by the merchant). The advantage here is that if you sign up for, say, 10 different CJ merchant's affiliate programs, and each one earns you $5, you will be paid the full $50 you earned. With many other affiliate networks, you would have been paid nothing since you would have not reached the normal minimum check sizes they set (generally $25-100 per merchant). Additionally, CJ offers centralized online commission reports for all merchant programs.

A second advantage of CJ is that just as their own affiliate program is two tier with, all other merchants in their network are also, by default, two-tier.

The 5% second-tier commissions apply to all merchants in their network, and not just the CJ affiliate program itself.

Lastly, CJ offers a wide variety of affiliate programs that you can promote on your site. Since they have attracted many smaller merchants, many of them are highly targeted, focusing on a particular niche.

This is very useful if your site is also very targeted, since it will increase the likelihood of finding a merchant that is appropriate for your audience. Programs in CJ also range across all types of affiliate commission models, including pay-per-click, pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale.

Recommended? - YES

A good friend of mine quoted "I have in the last 9 months received several pieces of good feedback, including many reports that CJ always pays on time and accurately. With a poor payment record generally being the major source of complaints for any affiliate program, I am confident in recommending CJ at this time".