What am I doing wrong with Commission Junction?!

by 17 replies
20
Hello all,

I was googling for an affiliate marketing forum and I found this forum. I have a lot of experience in SEO, Web Development and Design but I'm kinda new to Affiliate Marketing. Did some ClickBank for a few months and made a few sales, and about 5 months ago I got into CJ.com

I launched a high quality website, with really useful content, around a very commercial keyword: BUY XXXXX ONLINE. When I say high quality I really mean it: I spent money getting high quality content written and bought a great WP theme.

I managed to rank #3 for that keyword, and get around 50 hits a day from that keyword alone, with a very low bounce rate (23%) so I assume people like my site! Out of those 50 hits, about 10 of them end up clicking on my CJ offers (which happen to be HIGHLY targeted offers. They are basically retailers that sell the exact item in the keyword. Can't get any more targeted than that!).

It's been 3 months, and ZERO sales! That's almost 1,000 clicks I sent to those offers and got zero sales. Like I said, those offers are really targeted to the keyword.

I don't get it. I'm a clueless. I need help figuring out what's wrong... :confused:

Could it be my affiliate links that are wrong? Also, does the website on which I promote those offers need to be registered in CJ? Because this one isn't. The one that is registered in CJ is an older one that I decided to drop. Could that be a problem?

Any help/tips would be greatly appreciated since I'm a total noob at this!
#ad networks (cpm/cpl, display) #commission #junction #wrong
  • Well, the traffic is clicking but not converting obviously. You might want to run different creatives from the CJ links (banners) and test into whether that influences conversions.

    Sounds like a lot of looky-looks, but when they get to the actual Advertiser's sales page it's a dog and not converting for you.
  • I did try different creatives across the past 3 months. No luck

    It really worries me that I haven't made a single sale with all those clicks. I'm wondering if my links are wrong.
    • [1] reply
    • You need to call them up and talk to them. Something is a miss. Advertisers have the option to reject whatever they want so they really do not need to pay out. If this is the case then you need to move on.
      • [1] reply
  • Some offers just do not sell...you may want to try a similar product or using a different network. I don't know what product you are promoting but CPA products also convert a lot better.
  • Is your product/service seasonal? Are you in places where consumers are in purchasing mode?
  • Try a diffrent merchant for the product. Some merchants do not convert well.
    • [1] reply
    • It's not a seasonal product. The consumers are definitely in purchasing mode since the keyword they typed to get to my site was "Buy xxxxx online" (xxxxx being a product that costs anywhere from $299 to $1500)

      Problem is there are only 3 merchants on CJ that offer this product and I'm using all 3 of them! I have a Review page with the pros and cons of each merchant, with a banner AND text link to each merchant's storefront.

      How can I know if the merchant is being a scammer and not crediting me for the sales? I mean, CJ is a reputable organization, I would never assume that they would do something like this, but at this point I'm seriously starting to wonder.
      • [1] reply
  • I have always had rotten luck with Commission Junction. They always seem to lose my sales. Clients will tell me they bought from my affiliate link but the sale doesn't show in my stats.

    So now, even if I LOVE the product and use it, I won't promote it with an CJ affiliate link.


    ClickBank works great and I don't have that problem with stand alone sites with affiliate programs.
  • I'm a publisher with CJ. In the last month my record shows I delivered over 70,000 clicks
    and zero sales!

    I called, and the response was; well it shows clicks, that means there is no problem with the links because the clicks are being tracked.
    Do you understand what it took to deliver 70,000 clicks in 1 month?

    I'm more than perplexed. I need to take this energy somewhere else

    Imaging delivering over 70,000 click for a CPC program?

    Any advice would help.
    • [1] reply
    • There are only a few things that can go wrong:
      1. your copy
      2. your products match with the targeting
      3. your price
      4. other things on your page (such as images) that lead customers to distrust you
      5. mechanical (i.e accidental) errors in the CJ system
      6. deliberate (fraud) failure to credit you
      It's easy easy enough to figure out if it is one of the last two. Have some friends (preferably from a different city than yours) make some purchases and if you don't recieve credit then you know there is a problem with CJ.
      If the problem is there then the solution(s) are obvious.
      If the issue is not there then post the url of your sales page in the copywriting sub forum and ask for their thoughts.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Is the product you're promoting available through a merchant not listed in CJ who has a lower price than the merchants in CJ?

    You can provide the best information in the world about a product but if the product is widely available somewhere else for a lower price your customer may be comparison price shopping. You could be getting them to the buy point and then losing them because you're linking to a high cost provider.

    If that's the case you could test linking to both the CJ offer and an offer at a cheaper provider through another affiliate network and see if you get more sales.
  • Check out your links, sometimes if links are not set correctly, sales will not happen. I had the same problem with CJ, had clicks for affiliate products on my website and no sales. You need to make sure the click leads your customers to your paypal or other payment options.

    Other thing to check is if your site has been hacked or not. This happens a lot. So check these two things and if this is not the issue then problem could be with the convertion tactics, content, etc.
  • if everything worked perfectly and you didn't face any technical problems that you might not know of till now, then it's really disheartening that you didn't have a single conversion, something must have gone amiss..
  • Banned
    CJ is a tough network if you don't know what to do. The only offer that worked for me are hosting offers.
  • Banned
    are you split testing or rotating your CPA offers in the backend, it's always a good idea to quickly find out if it;s the offer that's hindering your earning!
  • [DELETED]
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    What am I doing wrong with Commission Junction?!

    Hello all, I was googling for an affiliate marketing forum and I found this forum. I have a lot of experience in SEO, Web Development and Design but I'm kinda new to Affiliate Marketing. Did some ClickBank for a few months and made a few sales, and about 5 months ago I got into CJ.com