Commission Junction is an Affiliate Marketing Program for Affiliates, Webmasters, Web Publishers and maintained by Commission Junction, Inc.
Commission Junction Summary
Commission Junction is one of the largest advertising companies in North America operating in the affiliate marketing industry. It is owned by ValueClick, a huge advertising company that caters to advertisers, advertising agencies, and traffic distribution partners; Commission Junction functions as the affiliate marketing segment of this big company. Apart from affiliate marketing solutions, CJ also provides performance marketing solutions to more than 1,500 customers, which includes Yahoo, Dell, and Home Depot. Its services are divided into three categories: affiliate, media, and tracking.
Commission Junction Features
Commission Junction is the only company in the affiliate marketing roster that provides the most comprehensive services for advertisers and publishers. Aside from being the biggest company in the affiliate marketing industry, it also has the largest number of merchants for publishers to choose from. The most useful feature it offers customers is the web-based emailing system that connects advertisers and affiliates, leaving out the middleman in the picture.
Also, it has a link tracking system that identifies expired links so that links in affiliate sites are always kept up-to-date. For affiliates managing multiple sites, CJ allows tracking of advertisements and statistics from all sites in one place, eliminating the headache of handling several affiliate programs.
Commission Junction also has great reporting features. The system gives updated reporting of a site’s weekly, monthly and yearly performance, so affiliates can readily view these details anytime they wish. There is also performance reporting that gives information on monthly sale amounts, commissions, conversion rate, sales, clicks, leads, and EPC. CJ also allows forming of reports on a specific site based from its overall performance during a specific period of time. It also tracks your best advertisers every month so that you are informed about who brings the most commission for the program.
Aside from performance, transactions can also be reported using commission summary, transaction summary, commission detail, and transaction detail. These reports can be sorted by category (impressions, advance sale, lead, advertiser, etc.) and can cover a certain period or date range.
Commission Junction has an easy-to-use website that even beginners will easily feel comfortable with. The comprehensive on-site search engine can give affiliates the data they want related to their advertisements and links, such as status, type, size, relationship, etc. Additionally, the friendly customer representatives are a great help when it comes to solving basic to difficult issues. There is also an informative FAQ page where newcomers can learn more about terminologies and the rules of the company.
Commission Junction Interface
Commission Junction’s website interface is easy to get used to and has all information one would need in order to administrate the account and deal with the various reports. The colors used are bright that give visitors an easy way of overlooking the account and quick stats.
There are more texts than graphics, so you will not be distracted in any way. There's no Flash content and images can be clicked to reveal more information about what they represent. pop-ups are loaded every time you are looking at a publisher and the specific publisher information like links, banners and the terms. Commission Junction has an extensive support and faq area with communications for CJ specific questions and message system for communication with publishers. All information is available from an easy to access support area.
The only thing that can be difficult at times is the advanced reporting system (not quick stats) and to find which specific product you have sold from a certain publisher but it's just takes some experience before one gets used to the reporting. Overall, CJ has a clean-looking site that is very informative in every way.
Commission Junction Review
If you want to enter the affiliate marketing business, Commission Junction can surely help you as long as you are serious and dedicated to succeed. The assistance they provide is great, lest they will not get such popular companies like Dell or Yahoo. According to online reviewers, CJ provides everything that experienced affiliates and publishers need in order to manage and track their campaigns. Thus, you can just expect the best. Payments can be withdrawn monthly as long as they are a minimum of $50 for direct bank deposit and $100 for check. If this arrangement is fine with you, you are good to go in your affiliate marketing efforts.