Commission Junction
Affiliate Program Software Characteristics & User Feedback

URL

 http://www.cj.com/

Company:

 Commission Junction, Santa Barbara, California

Software Type:

 ASP - Commission

Affiliate/Merchant Web Interface

Yes

Pricing:

$1,295 initial network access fee (no renewal fee), $500 deposit

Commission:

20% of commission paid to affiliates , with $250 minimum per month 

Affiliate Marketing & Recruitment:

Yes

Tracks:

 Impressions, Clicks, Leads, Sales

Two-Tier:

Yes

Customize individual payment rate:

Yes

Carts that support:

Most

Payment Systems

N/A

Writes checks to Affiliates:

Yes

Data Export:

Many reports available. Report downloads comma-delimited files.

Affiliate ID generation:

Yes

Banner/graphic management:

Yes

E-mail to affiliate after each order

 No

Send e-mail to affiliates:

 Only through the internal member-messaging system. 

Affiliate sign-up:

 Automatic or manual screening

Redirects to particular pages:

 Yes

Average Survey Rating:

 6.9

Number of Respondents:

 15

Positives:

Easy to use, seen as a trusted third party

Ease of use, integrated stats, incontexual advertising emphasis

They recruit for you

Affordable rates, good interface, good customer service

Third party tracking; I think people see them as being trustworthy to correctly track and pay their commissions. Access to lots of potential members.

Easy 90-day tracking. Efficient recruiting process, Easy Product links

Software and the entire organization. For it is very hands off. I pay for it, but they take care of all the backend work and marketing.

Ease of use, large client base to work with. Lots of related type programs.

Ease of use.

It's hands-off. I don't have to worry about it or think about it. It works by itself.

The CJ network is an excellent source for new affiliates. The report generator is very flexible. It's easy to locate a specific affiliate. Can download transaction details and send bulk corrections via email (features we could not live without).

Easy to use

Negatives:

Can't do custom links for particular affiliates

Not always the most flexible, tech support can be slow.

Cannot edit affiliate sign ups poor validity check for leads

New fee structure imposed without consultation/warning to existing clients. Relatively small base of affiliates

My publisher was using Commission Junction. Then CJ became greedy and increased their rates. It became uneconomical for the publisher. So, he will be cutting ties with CJ. That means the sales force I built up will go bye-bye. This could happen at any time with any program which I do not control myself. At sometime I could get a different publisher. So, I have made a decision that I will not use any affiliate program to sell my own products unless I have total control of the program.

Too expensive -- my investment has not paid for itself yet. They don't provide very much support to merchants. 95% of our affiliates are not performing. Very few are targeted to our market.

Slow site

Very large and sometimes seem lost in all the maze of things to do. Dislike having someone else controlling the database and my back end office.

It could be easier to review applications.

Affiliates aren't screened. Any manner of folk can sign-up as an affiliate, most of whom will never send anyone to our site. (Editor: screening IS an option.)

The website is slow to respond which makes all administrative tasks laborious. The integrated messaging system is a major annoyance since we would prefer to use our own email client. The help system is even slower and not only is it difficult to find an answer, but some answers are confusing or just plain wrong (which we learned firsthand).

Purchase Again?

Yes

Yes

Yes, because of their ability to recruit.

Yes

No -- because the initial investment is too high, and it didn't meet our goals to generate revenue as quickly as expected. It does provide a lot of traffic to our site. We need more help/ training in managing the whole project. We thought CJ would provide more management & recruitment of targeted affiliates.

Yes, it has exceeded all of our expectations.

Yes

Yes, very hands off

Nothing to purchase, just the start up fee. Would rather have the money in my bank. But it gives the affiliates confidence that they will be paid.

Most likely I would.

No. CJ increased its price. The cost can not be justified based on zero sales in 3 years from affiliate sources. We've decided to end the program.

Yes. We switched from Clicktrade and found the customer service and feature list at CJ to be vastly superior. With a faster web site and better documentation, CJ would be near perfect.

Yes.

Other comments:

 I manage programs across multiple networks, CJ has one the easiest and most cost effective solutions.

The software appears to be reliable and accurate. But very expensive for small business.

They are in the middle of changing how product links are managed. Because product links work so much better for us (vs. banners or text links), our opinion may lower a bit if the functionality is reduced. With a faster web site and better documentation, our numerical rating would be a couple of points higher.