Not Making $ On Commission Junction

[davidjames42973]

Hello everybody,

Please don't take this message as me whining about not making money with CJ, but here is my story and would love to hear your input.

I make a pretty good amount of money in affiliate marketing. Some of the things I use is Clickbank, where I make decent money with. I also use ebay partner network too and make a killing with it. I've had a commission junction account for well over a year and have never made a dime. I started to get suspicious when I added links to a website that mixes CJ and ebay. This one website sells high end watches and makes about $150 annually with Ebay, but the CJ account doesn't make a cent, but gets tons of clicks.

Now I've built several websites for Halloween that are getting lots of visitors and will get bigger the closer Halloween comes. I've used about 98% Commission Junction links and the other 2% have been Ebay. I've already made some money with ebay sales, but not a dime in Commission Junction.

Has anybody had this experience? I'm just trying to figure out what I may be doing wrong. CJ is getting a tons of clicks to their sites through my halloween sites, but haven't made 1 cent.

[Sleaklight]

I use CJ as they are the only network with the company I promote with on my of my websites. We hold annual groupings and the tickets are purchased by my website members through my affiliate link. Only a handful get credited to me and the other's don't. I am confident cj is shady.

[Chris Parker]

Yeah, I used CJ for a couple of years and made less than $10. I quit and will never go back...There is definitely something up with their tracking practices.

[davidjames42973]

Another thing that is making me question CJ's tracking, is I'm using a aweber list. If they sign up, they receive a 15% off coupon code for their sale. I've had this particular site up for a week and have had 5 people sign up to get the code.

Does anybody use Linkshare? I just signed up for an account.

[entrepreneurjay]

I'll be sure to stay away from them, anyone having any success with linkshare?

[Matrixzer0]

Originally Posted by Sleaklight

I use CJ as they are the only network with the company I promote with on my of my websites. We hold annual groupings and the tickets are purchased by my website members through my affiliate link. Only a handful get credited to me and the other's don't. I am confident cj is shady.

Wow thank you for the update. People were saying CJ was shady for over a year. I thought it was just they were angry CJ pays late sometimes.

But now I know better.

[Will_Surren]

I used CJ about a year ago and never made one sell with them. I thought that it was my site or my content. I lost my account because they said I was not making enough sales. However, some of the links were still on my sites. So, I clicked on the links and they still went to the product.... Hummm.... You think they may kill your account knowing that you will still have live links that you will not be able to get access to the traffic data... I wonder??

Well I went back to CJ just to see if my sites would convert now since I have had such good luck with linkshare and shareasale... Well one month with CJ 6900+ views and no sales... It is very hard to understand how linkshare and shareasale are getting sales on the same pages but CJ does not....

After reading this thread, I am going to close my CJ account... I am not feeling too good about using it...

If anyone is getting good results with CJ, please add to this thread.. I would like to know if this is a real issue or not...

[LNSTRM]

Hold on folks.

I built my very first affiliate site back in 2005. I used CJ exclusively, more specific, the eBay program, before it went in-house. I went on to sell that site in early 2006, and I haven't used them since then. They never paid me late, and never shaved sales as far as I could tell. And they do not close your account for "not enough sales", they close accounts that are inactive for (I think) 90 days, and all you have to do is just put in a request to have it re-opened. I did it, and they re-opened it with no problems.

Listen, all affiliate/CPA networks are shady to some degree, that is just the nature of this business. I have been shaved on Hydra, Maxbounty, etc., it's a margin thing. There is only so much tracking you can do. And in the end, it's your word against theirs.

I have 10 CJ affiliate sites in the barrel for launch next month, so we'll see if things have changed.

[davidjames42973]

I took one of my websites and replaced the CJ links with all ebay affiliate links, then kept the Cj Links on the other websites that get the same amount of traffic for the same niche.

I also emailed CJ too in hopes that I can resolve this problem...

[Tony Dean]

I was hearing the same things about CJ 5 years ago - I would never touch them with a long pole!

[derekwong28]

I am very suspicious with CJ tracking at the moment. Their conversion rate is almost half of what I get with other affiliate networks. I have never earnt a lot with them, the highest being $1100 per month. This month, it is $150 so far and I am very disappointed considering the amount of work I have put in the month before.

[zuluranger]

I thought I was alone having problem with CJ. I have sent many traffic to CJ but the conversion is very low. I have much success in ShareAsale.

[Will_Surren]

Originally Posted by LNSTRM

Hold on folks.

I built my very first affiliate site back in 2005. I used CJ exclusively, more specific, the eBay program, before it went in-house. I went on to sell that site in early 2006, and I haven't used them since then. They never paid me late, and never shaved sales as far as I could tell. And they do not close your account for "not enough sales", they close accounts that are inactive for (I think) 90 days, and all you have to do is just put in a request to have it re-opened. I did it, and they re-opened it with no problems.

I logged in to the account that they closed at least once per week. So the account was not inactive. Also, when I talked to CJ they told me the account was not accessible because I did not make any sales for 90 days and if I wanted to get another account with them I could but they would not allow me access to that account...

[elliot]

To test this for real you should all head on over to my site and buy stuff via my CJ affiliate links! For testing purposes only of course.

On a more serious note. If this is true about CJ then that suucckkss! Man do I have a lot of affiliate links to change over.

[Sheryl Polomka]

I use CJ to promote a hosting company and am making over $1000 a month with it. One month I had issues with the actual Hosting company itself, which CJ staff were quite helpful in sorting out.

You need to remember that CJ is kind of the middle man, but the companies within them that you are promoting need to take some of the blame if there is blame to be had.

My checks come every month and on time, other than that one issue where I wasn't paid, but that was sorted out and although paid a month late it was paid.

[Teekay]

I am new to CJ but I think I need to think twice based on what most people are saying. Or can I say it depends on individuals?

[Catalyst eMarketing]

Originally Posted by LNSTRM

Listen, all affiliate/CPA networks are shady to some degree, that is just the nature of this business. I have been shaved on Hydra, Maxbounty, etc., it's a margin thing. There is only so much tracking you can do. And in the end, it's your word against theirs.

I'm not defending CJ, but affiliate networks don't shave - they would lose money if they did. They are not paid like CPA networks are.

CJ makes 30% of whatever the merchant pays affiliates so if you don't make money, they don't make money. So it's not in their best interest to screw anyone over intentionally. Now that's not to say they don't have tracking issues, they could have. Just saying I don't think they intentionally short affiliates on commission.

It's different with CPA networks. If they get paid $45 for an offer they maybe pay affiliates $35 of that. However if they shave and don't track the affiliate sale they make the full $45 instead of only $10.

[mfleisch]

Hey David. I used CJ for a little while to promote seasonal items and lost a good deal of money. After losing about $250 I swore off CJ and returned to CB and CPA networks. I guess that's why they always say to never fall in love with a particular affiliate product of network!

[xlfutur1]

Ironic I saw this thread,after just checking my CJ account and nothing. I used to make good money when Ebay was a part of CJ, but since they left, my other sites don't do anything as far as sales go. Time to ditch them it looks like.

[Jon Tees]

I never made a dime with them through two totally different stints at two different points in my IM career. In fact, I completely forgot about them after ending my first stint and have only started to remember working with them before after beginning a stint more recently.