How to Make Money with Commission Junction

Commission Junction Review

Find out how Commission Junction can become a reliable and significant source of online income. Whether you're just looking to diversify your affiliate programs, or you've been afraid or skeptical about joining Commission Junction (CJ), find out why it's worth your time and effort to sign up and apply to its merchants.

I make a full-time living online. Through research, perseverance, and a lot of trial and error, I've finally reached a point where CJ rivals my Amazon earnings, giving me another significant source of income each month. Keep reading to find out why you should sign up with Commission Junction to grow your online business, and get a copy of CJ Tactics , the definitive guide to earning money with Commission Junction.

Sign Up with Commission Junction

Take the First Step

Commission Junction is an affiliate network (affiliate marketing company) with a wide breadth of merchants (also called advertisers ), ranging from small online boutiques to well known global brands.

If you're even a little bit curious about selling on CJ, you should sign up just to see who their merchants are. It's free to join. Most affiliate networks don't provide a full list of who's in their network to people who aren't members. It doesn't cost you anything to sign up and get access to that list.

Once you're in, you can view all the merchants' available links and creative without having to join their programs first.

CJ Tactics: Commission Junction Guide

How to Use Commission Junction

CJ Tactics

I owe a huge amount of my success on Commission Junction to a blogger and online marketer named James Hussey, aka, The Average Genius (theaveragegenius.net). Not only does he have an incredibly inspiring story about making a living online, but he was the one who first crystallized for me the potential opportunity that CJ.com is. I've even told him so.

He's gone a step further and compiled his research into an e-book called CJ Tactics , written just for CJ affiliates. I can count on one hand the number of Internet Marketing ebooks I've bought in the 2 1/2 years I've been making money online, and I didn't hesitate to buy James' book because I knew he'd offer a hype-free, helpful advice that I could put to use right away.

I always look for people who are performing better than me, but are also close enough that the success they've achieved is reasonably within reach for me, and James is exactly that.

What is CJ Tactics?
CJ Tactics is an ebook written for folks with their own sites and blogs, but many of the sales techniques can be applied to 3rd party platforms like Squidoo. n the book, you'll find tips for choosing high profit, high converting products, choosing a niche, and building a site that converts, improving your CJ conversion rate, using the Commission Junction interface, and traffic building and promotion tips.

* James does not reveal which programs he makes money with or give any advice on which programs you should join. Only YOU know your interests and what's best for your niche.

1. Do I have to apply to each merchant individually if I want to sell their products?

What to Look for in a CJ Merchant

The following applies only to me, personally. Other folks might have a different approach.

The way I choose a merchant is by looking at my niche and deciding what I want to sell, or what might compliment something that I'm already selling, blogging, or lensmaking about. Then, I find out who sells it, and that's whose program I join.

I review the merchant's terms, paying particular attention to commission rate and cookie length. I also look at the landing page for the product I want to sell, because a confusing user interface or graphics that make the site look cheap could turn off any potential customers I send there.

I also look at the creative they offer to see if it's relevant and high quality enough to use, and to see if they keep their banner inventory and promotions up to date. (Do they have banners in CJ from long-expired promotions? Do they have Mother's Day banners available in late April in time for me to use them, etc.)

Lastly, depending on the niche, I check to see if the merchant offers a link creator / custom link builder that will allow me to link to any page on their site that I want to. There might be instances where I want to send customers to a category-level page or a search results page via my affiliate link.

What to Do If You Application to a CJ Program Is Rejected

If you get declined from a CJ affiliate program, don't take "no" for an answer. Try to appeal the decision. At the very least, get a "why" that you can learn from in the future. Here's what you should do if you get turned down when applying to a merchant on Commission Junction.

Get the affiliate manager's email address (usually listed at the top off their "advertiser detail" page), and contact them directly. In your email, give them the url to the site and the date you applied to their program, and ask why you were declined. You can share stats, talk about your internet marketing or SEO experience, your Google ranking for top keywords, how you plan to promote, other affiliate programs you belong to or have had success with, or anything else that makes your case or demonstrates why your site would be a good fit for their program.

Sometimes, your rejection might have been a simple oversight. When you have multiple sites/lenses listed in CJ, the merchant can't tell which of those you intended to sell their products on. Affiliate managers are busy folks, and sometimes they miss the relevant site when reviewing applications.

I've gotten into a couple programs that originally turned me down after following up using the techniques above.

The mere fact that you took a step that most other applicants won't bother with (taking the time to email them personally with the relevant information) will often sway them. Plus, establishing a personal relationship with the affiliate manager is just good practice. They'll be more responsive to you and you'll be at the top of their minds for special promotions and opportunities. (I'm trying to improve on this myself. The bigger an affiliate you are for them, the more this matters, of course.)

Worst case scenario, if you email them, you'll find out 1) WHY you got declined, which is useful info going forward, or 2) whether the affiliate manager is responsive enough to even answer your email -- if they're not, you probably don't want to be bothered with their program anyway.

Another trick I use is to make sure one of my sites/lenses is in the same category the merchant says they are in. You can change your site's category for the application, and then change it back later if you want. I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but it gives them one less reason to auto-decline you.

And lastly, remember that you can always reapply. You're not declined forever. Try again when you have better traffic stats, increased sales with another program at CJ (since they take your account performance into consideration) or a success story that would make a difference in their decision.

Commission Junction FAQs

Commission Junction Affiliate Program Questions

Yes, you need to apply to each affiliate program individually. Some might accept you instantly, while others might require a manual review of your application.

2. If I'm rejected from a program, can I reapply?

Yes, you can reapply if you get rejected. To improve your odds, though, you should contact the affiliate manager to find out why you were rejected. If you need to change or improve something to get approved, wait to reapply until after you can demonstrate the changes/improvements.

3. Do I need to add all my web sites or lenses to CJ, or is one enough?

It's best to add all the sites or lenses on which you want to sell CJ products. That way, merchants can see that you have relevant web properties in their category when they review your application.

4. Can I modify a Commission Junction link?

You can modify the plain HTML version of a link, but you should only do so if you know what you're doing. You shouldn't touch the url itself, but you can certainly add "nofollow" attributes, change the "target" properties to your liking, or change the anchor link, alt text or image size when you place the html on your site or lens. You can also leave out the tracking cookie (the 0x0 image) if you want to. Sometimes it makes sense to leave the tracking cookie so that you can measure impressions, but if you have multiple CJ products on one page, then leaving the tracking code on just one item is enough, since everything on the page will have the same number of impressions/page loads.

5. Can I shorten a CJ link using a link shortener?

Yes. As long as the url with your PID is intact before shortening, you'll still get credit for the sale. Many webmasters use link cloakers like Pretty Links, Eclipse Link Cloaker, or SEO Ultimate so they can make the affiliate link url look "pretty" to visitors and to collect stats on their clicks.

6. What about the product descriptions provided in CJ? Can I use those?

You can, but you shouldn't. To avoid being penalized by Google for duplicate content, and more importantly, to provide value to your visitors, you should write your own descriptions. Just use the merchant's copy as a guide, nothing more.

7. Should I sign up for advertiser emails, and how do I do that?

You should sign up for emails, at least at first. Active advertisers will send you helpful tips, promotion and new product announcements, coupon codes, and even lists of the best-selling products. You can always opt out later if you find the emails too frequent or unhelpful, but when you're new to a program, you want to gather as much information as possible to help you sell.

You can sign up for email when you first apply to a program, or at any time you want. Click on the "Get Links" tab, and then click on the merchant's name in the list. On the "Advertiser Details" screen that pops up, look for "Mail Settings" on the right. Check the box next to "Receive Email" to subscribe to that advertiser's email list, and click the "Update Mail Settings" button. (Follow the same process to unsubscribe.)make money with commission junction, earn money by clicking links, make money with cj

* Note, you should NEVER copy and paste the links from the emails that advertiser send you onto your site. Advertiser newsletters usually have THEIR publisher ID embedded in the link, meaning you won't get credit for the sale if you use it. Instead, grab the AID (which is the set of numbers after the hyphen) or just copy the name of the promotion. Then log into CJ.com, run a search for it, and build your own link to the promotion.