My previous experiences with Commission Junction have not been that great, there was that one time when they closed my account without telling me but left their advertisers adverts running. That was a bit annoying, it also earned them there first strike from me. They don’t really appear to do anything for affiliates, it’s all about the advertisers for them, 1 look at the rubbish percentages will show you that.
In the last 24 hours they’ve managed to hit strikes 2 and 3 and I’ve now asked for my account to be closed. The main problem here is that I’ve been stitched up like a kipper, one of their advertisers has taken me for a ride and Commission Junction are more than happy to go along with it.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a company to promote an event. They’d found one of my sites, loved the look of it and we’re really keen for me to sign up with their affiliate program (through CJ) and get earning. It was a personal e-mail from one of their marketing representatives, I know this because I replied and we had a very nice exchange of ideas going forward. So I used my existing CJ account to sign up, was approved after several days (during which they reviewed my website again) and then set about integrating their creative’s into my content. The site in question isn’t really a money maker but more of a hobby, I’m not overly bothered about the money from it so the very low commission percentage was not a problem. After a couple of days I checked my stats and low and behold the program was doing great, a 15% conversion rate for them, just under $500 in sales and I’d earned a little bit as well.
Jump forward to last night. I get an e-mail from the advertiser stating that due to my website containing illegal content they were pulling the plug. Maybe just a coincidence but I was only 1 or 2 sales below getting a better percentage for the rest of the month. As for the illegal content, that’s utter crap. I’ve always been very careful with all my websites and I’m certainly not interested in getting into legal battles over the sake of a hobby website. A t the first sign of a cease and desist order I’d alter whatever it was they were complaining about. To date nothing like that has ever happened. Besides the website contains nothing but text content and links, if I remove that text then the website doesn’t rank and they don’t sell. It has been a great way for them to make some very quick sales earn a wedge and then not have to pay any commission, great. That’s strike 2 for Commission Junction for allowing any old company to sell stuff through them.
Then I got another e-mail this morning this time from Commission Junction themselves. As I expected all commission is to be forfeited. Not only that but I have somehow violated their TOS and have 5 days to respond. Maybe I upset their nan or something? Strike 3. I am also a Commission Junction customer, without me and other affiliates hosting ads for their advertisers they don’t have a business. Completely ignoring the fact that their is nothing illegal about the content of my website there is also the small matter that the company in question bloody contacted me personally AFTER reviewing my website. They then accepted my application (that they had asked me to make) after reviewing my website again. After I’d earnt just enough money for them they then decided my website was not suitable and I got shafted. I gave Commission Junction a response in less than 5 days, shut my account now and void any banners that are showing, I don’t want to be earning their advertisers another penny.
I know it’s slightly of subject but this is what really worries me about Google’s edging towards CPA. It is just switching the potential fraud from publishers to advertisers, and when you’re dealing with a big advertiser as an individual you’re screwed from the start.
By the way I’m now on the lookout for a good CPA affiliate network, what’s your favourite?
4 Responses to “Commission Junction..Strike 2, Strike 3, You’re Out!”
Michelle
September 14, 2007
Crumbs. I thought CJ was one of the big hitters. I will be very interested in viewing your commentors favourite alternatives!
Shellie
|Googlelady
September 14, 2007
The truth this surprised me because I have been with Comission junction since 2003 and never got a problem with them. I am just waiting a check from them and last 2 months have been my biggest earning (a check for 5 figures).
|PHP eBook
September 14, 2007
I created a CJ account a long time ago and just found it cumbersome to navigate their site. There’s a lot of affiliates out there to work with one-on-one, I would prefer to do that – except for trying to manage and check all of the tallies.
|bob
March 22, 2011
In my own experiences, I used CJ.com for 7 years and made some good money. More recently, I received an email stating that my account would be closed because I didn’t follow the rules. And within minutes my CJ account was locked and couldn’t be accessed. Furthermore, they requested that I answer their emails but they also locked the email address so I was not able to answer. And all my answers were sent back to me.
After further investigations on my part and out point since the last years on my sales I found the following:
During the period of Sept, Oct and Nov 2009, I was making good sales with one of my merchant like $60 – $120 a day. Then certainly toward the end of Nov 2009 the sales stopped to $0 while my clicks and impressions were still going up. I contacted CJ support and told them about this situation and they responded that they could agree more with the crash and that they will investigate. They did and found nothing wrong with their systems. But what could I do to verify their statements? Nothing!
Another CJ merchant, I use to make good money back in 2006 certainty stopped making sales for about 1 year and half. Despite the clicks stats still going up but no sales. Then this CJ Merchant decided to leave CJ.com last year and went to another affiliate Network. I signed up with this new affiliate Network and joined this merchant. Believe or not my sales went up the roof and still are going up to this day.
One other similar example from another sport merchant that decided to leave CJ. But prior leaving, since I was a good affiliate for them sent me a private email stating that they couldn’t work with CJ anymore and they wanted me to join them on their private Affiliate Network, which I did. Using this new Merchant Network as opposed to CJ, I double my sales on a monthly basis.
To make a story short as per the above, one can see that CJ system either at the corporate level or individual affiliate manager are dishonest. This is simple and very straight forward facts.
So the question remind since the last 7 years using 100′s of CJ merchants how much money never came in my pocket? No idea…
But for sure, I know for a fact that somewhere along the line that some affiliate managers are keeping the sales from affiliate to themselves and perhaps the heads of CJ.com most probably don’t even know about it.
Personally, I do not blame CJ as a company. I mean, there are no doubt in my mind that few bad apple are working in their system ripping off affiliates that work hard to get some extra money. And I will believe that the corporate at CJ don’t even know about.
Anyway, I still waiting for my last payment from them which I earned but I not sure if I will ever get it…
ps: CJ if you read this, you should investigate your own back yard as per the above facts you are being betrayed and many affiliates are too.
ps: I know that there are many instances and examples like this. Affiliate if you have similar situations happening to YOU gather the facts and speak out LOAD. You can make a difference…
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