CJ.COM

Commission Junction (sometimes known as CJ) is an affiliate marketing company, much like Clickbank and Linkshare. Whereas Clickbank is unique in that it only deals with digitally-delivered products and services, Commission Junction offers affiliate programs for physical products and services.

COMMISSION JUNCTION: WHAT IS CJ? WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Commission Junction supports publishers engaging in search marketing and believes it is another way you can extend your reach beyond your own marketing efforts. Although you may be concerned publishers are creating more competition in the search engines, many advertisers have shown with their results that the benefits outweigh the costs, especially considering that publishers engaged in search marketing on behalf of advertisers are assuming the cost of purchasing the keywords. Publishers also test and refine their campaigns with specific advertiser offers and creative at their own expense. There are a couple of ways you can leverage these publishers to ensure that you are taking advantage of the additional advertising they can provide through the search engines, while still managing your brand representation."

The parent company of CJ is ValueClick, which is a publicly-traded online marketing company. CJ is one of the bigger, more well-known affiliate marketing networks around.

Commission Junction serves as a meeting point that joins advertisers (product/service vendors) with publishers (webmasters/marketers/affiliates). Affiliate marketing is the arrangement where an affiliate refers people to the advertiser, or product vendor. If the affiliate’s referral makes a purchase, the affiliate marketing company (CJ in this case) tracks this transaction. CJ would then pay the affiliate their commission, pay the vendor, and take a small fee for itself.

This is an example of what a third-party, like Commission Junction, does.

If you’re a product vendor who would like to have affiliates promoting your product, Commission Junction has a lot of affiliates. Though we don’t have the exact figures, it’s safe to say that CJ is probably one of the biggest networks, in terms of numbers of affiliates. This is good, because you have a larger pool of affiliates who can potentially promote your product or service for you.

Why are so many affiliates attracted to Commission Junction? One reason is because of the product/service providers it attracts. Lexmark, Newsweek, and Reebok are among the hundreds of product vendors that run programs affiliated with Commission Junction.

While CJ has a lot of affiliates, you’ll probably find that it’s only a handful of affiliates who actually bring you the majority of your sales. It’s the old 80/20 rule, where 20% of affiliates may contribute to 80% of the sales. In fact, it might even be only 5%, or even a single super-affiliate who does this for you.

Before opening an affiliate program, you’ll want to make things as easy as possible for your affiliates. Give them banners, articles, content, demo software, and everything they need to help sell your product. This advice applies to affiliate marketing as a whole.

Commission Junction