Commission Junction (CJ) Review – Is Really CJ Is the Right Choice For Your Affiliate Revenue Campaign

About Commission Junction Introduction

CJ Secrets Revealed

Commission Junction Logo

Commission Junction (CJ) is one of the largest affiliate networks that connect advertisers and publishers for promoting affiliate products. Commission junction is founded in the year of 1998 the privately held company has over 100 employees and it headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA .  Commission junction is well supported by its parent company ValueClick – one of the major giants in digital marketing solution which is acquired CJ on Dec 2003.


CJ claims that more than 1500 potential advertisers* have been registered under their program and serving over thousands of publishers around the globe *.

CJ Member users

Being an merchant program CJ connects the both publishers and advertisers for promoting the advertiser products and service

Advertiser

Advertiser is the member company whose products or service is going to be promoted with publisher websites or blogs using the platform provided by Commission Junction. Being member with advertiser can promote their products or service with thousands of websites in hassle free manner. With the commission junction the advertiser have two options to promote their products

CJ Access

CJ Vantage

CJ Access

CJ Access is the commission Junction’s automated program to manage the advertiser programs across publisher accounts. The CJ Access functionality is best suited for small and medium sized advertiser companies.

CJ Vantage

CJ Account manager adds humans experts approach to the advertiser program promotion, in this functionality the advertiser account is managed though the expert advertiser  who effectively manages the product promotion activities with publisher accounts

Publisher

Publishers are qualified website or blog owners joined to promote the merchant programs with their websites or blogs. Being an publisher with   CJ publishers can earn money by promoting the commission junction income streams available to the publishers

Publisher Approval Process

To get participated “Publisher “with CJ merchant program you should join the CJ publisher program first

Joining with CJ as a publisher

Joining with CJ is merely easy by filling the secure signup form provided by commission junction registration page . During the signup you have to provide your main website for considering into the approval process. After submitting the publisher registration information request, the CJ representative will review the information and informs on your email about your account activation. CJ approval process guideline is easier than some of the other affiliate networks so, publisher websites having minimum traffic can easily get activated on this program.

Program Approval Process

After the publisher account got approved, publishers can login to their account to access their publisher interface. The advertiser program requirement for publisher is different from each other to get promote their programs one must apply and get approved from the advertiser guidelines. The CJ program approval process done in two ways

  • By automatic approval system
  • By Manual approval method

If the publisher account is eligible for the promotion of the particular program the program account status “Active” whereas if the publisher program is not eligible then it shows the status as “Declined Application”.

Some programs require manual approval from the representative from the particular advertiser program. Once it got approved the status became “Active” the status will be “Pending” as ever.

Some advertising programs demands higher website traffic and volume of sales conversions and they may allow the websites or blog having this eligibility. For this CJ program automatically tracks the past performance in terms of website traffic and sales conversions for specific advertiser programs. Those who are having the eligibility can only allowed to this particular program

Publisher income Streams

Multiple income streams of Commission Junction are available for the publishers by the way of promoting variety of advertiser programs

  • Cost Per Action
  • Cost Per Thousand Impressions
  • Bonus Incentives

See detailed information about Commission junction income streams

Advantages of Commission Junction Program

Highest fixed commission rate

CJ offers industries highest commission rate available on web that was the greatest advantage of this program. Most of the sales conversions offer more than 50% commission on total price of the product and even some of them offer more than 90% sales commission that was an incredible commission rate on the affiliate market.  Some of the web hosting companies like HostGator will provides more than 90$ commission for $120 sales made with CJ program. By analyzing through the merchants program deeply you can find the most performing and highest paying sales products from commission junction.

Increased Commission on Performance

Increased commission structure is also one of the best advantages of choosing CJ commission program it offers increased sales commission on specific products if the publisher achieved specific targets ( in case of number of sales or revenue )

Pay per Lead commission

CJ offers commission not only for making valid sales but also for providing potential leads to their merchant program.  Providing the leads like signup form filling, trail downloads also provides the commission to the publishers

Products From Global Brands

Commission Junction is the one of the least affiliate program where you can find products from global brands at one place. In Commission Junction affiliate program you can find major giants like Apple, Yahoo Advertising, HostGator, CitiFinancial and much more

Excellent Tracking System

CJ member interface offers excellent information about program tracking and your commission schemes . The tracking information is divided into two major categories

Tracking by performance

Tracking by performance offers detailed information about your campaign status like no of impression the campaign or Ads received,  No of Leads Generated,No clicks received, visitor information and etc

Tracking by earning

Tracking by earning offers information about money earned through the campaign with in the selected time period like earnings by month,  Last month , last year particular time period and etc.

Rotating Ads

Commission junction offers rotating Ads serve feature in the name of “Smart Adzone” functionality, using this function the publishers can easily randomizes the banner advertisements by putting the simple HTML or java script code on their website or blogs. By adding the “Add To SmartZone” button found on the program list pages

Encrypted affiliate links

Hiding the affiliate links from the readers is one  of  factors to retain your commission , if you are not hiding the affiliate links from your viewers ,then there are lot of chances that your commissions being steals from your hand . CJ offers inbuilt affiliate URL hiding sales feature will reduces the burden of the publishers, No more link cloaking or redirection is required to protect the affiliate links from your readers. Encrypted affiliate links function can be found while getting the links for the specific programs with commission junction.

Prompted Commission Delivery

CJ will deliver the commissions to the publishers every month, promoted delivery of commissions to the publishers also one of the important aspects of CJ merchant program. They will not restrict you upon earning higher commission and delay your payment; you will get the commissions at the right time.

Pay Per Call Program

CJ now offer Pay Per call Program that enables the publishers earn not only from their money blogging campaigns but also by providing the potential phone numbers to the CJ Pay per call program. When advertisers get the potential leads from the given phone numbers the publisher get paid. But this program is currently available for US based publishers only. But publishers from other region can apply for this program and they will get informed when it is available to the particular publisher region.

Limitations of CJ Program

Little Bit complex for New Publishers

Commission Junction publisher interface is seems little bit complex to the new publishers those who want to get started with the available programs.  Most of the problems that the new publisher is present while they are trying to get the links from the available programs, information tracking and so on. New publishers get struck by the little bit complexity of the publisher interface that leads to abandon the use their account taken at some times

Unresponsive Program Approval Process

In CJ, lot of people experienced and reporting that they are not allowed to certain advertiser programs, their program approval is “Declined Frequently” or status still in “Pending “state even though they are eligible for the particular advertiser programs. This unresponsiveness made the serious critic over CJ by the publishers.

Deactivation of Publisher account

CJ will automatically deactivates the accounts which fails to make  the sales for 6 consecutive months this measure is may taken to retain only the qualified publisher accounts with their system. But the problem is more often publishers reported that their account has been deactivated without notice and also it having the serious issue of

Whether CJ will pay the publisher for the sales made on their referrals in the deactivation period?

Looking for the answers from the CJ!

Conclusion:

If have the website having decent traffic and having sales conversion , CJ is definitely the right   choice for promoting affiliate sales income and your money blogging campaign .

Commission Junction Income Secrets Exposed

 

Best Affiliate programs – How to find and join top affiliate programs

 

Is this Signup is Free?

Before signup with affiliate programs make sure that affiliate programs available for free to signup. Programs that demanding valid sales before joining their programs are most of times stands side with multi level marketing programs and also if the programs are costs to sign up its too hard to promote through affiliate tier program.

Commission Percentage

Affiliate programs are different than the Pay Per Impression (PPI) program and Pay Per Click Program ( PPC) those will pay you even your referrals not making with their system. But in case of affiliate programs you have to plan and organize your website to make valid sales so whenever you are choosing this kind of affiliate programs be sure that they are offering highest sales commission as possible. Getting a minimum 50% commission on total sales will be the moderate sales commission in the industry is sure that your commission will be more than that. Some of the programs like Aweber Program offer recurring based commissions on subscription sales that will be the good choice for promotion so that you can avail periodic sales commissions even after the primary sales have been made

Tier based programs

Some of the affiliate program offer sales commission for sub referrals made by your client. Basically tier based commissions are lower than the direct affiliate commissions but will helps you generate commission even from other sources. So choosing the tier based affiliate programs are wise decision to generate more income but make sure that if the commission that they are promising is genuine . Tier based programs are most preferable with online money making bloggers whose pages are most actively read by the same attitude of money making minds online.

Affiliate tracking system

The merchant that they are promoting the affiliate programs should offer well organized and effective tracking mechanism so that you can manage your tracking activities more comfortable. Effectively organized tracking system will helps to you identify and optimize various factors like Ad space optimization, Targeted Ad campaigns, Click Through Rate (CTR) and much more. And much importantly it helps you to get touch with your down line ( Those who are signed up under you specially with tier based programs )to increase sales . some of the programs offer third party affiliate management network like Commission Junction ( CJ Program) , ClickBank Program ,e-junkie program and others . These type of third party affiliate management network offers state of art tool to manage your campaign and most of time their conversion ratio, tractability is much higher than the program offering companies

Best customer support

Your affiliate program Owner ( The company who offering the service ) should provide best customer support for both your clients and also for yours. Because most of the companies offering the money back guarantee for limited time, if your client is not satisfied with their products or services you will lose your commission. So if the program owner offers better customer support will helps your clients from abandon the sales during the money back guarantee period

Promotional Materials

Promotional materials are most important ingredients to boost up your affiliate marketing campaign, so when you choosing the program you have look the company about the promotional material that they are offering like banners, mini sites, brochures, presentations , videos and sometimes with white label branded websites.

Commission Payment procedure

Finally you may consider about the commission payment procedure that they are following.

  • What will be the minimum amount to be reached for payout?
  • How frequently you will be paid monthly or weekly?
  • In which mode the commission will reach you PayPal or check?

Create and sell your eBooks to make money online

 

According to the recent statistics, selling eBook is one of the top money making method online. Millions of people daily searching over net to seek the information that they want and most of them prefer it to read the eBooks rather than read it on web pages because of the completeness of eBook over particular topic .So writing the eBook is a wise decision not only for enhance your writing skills but also it helps you to earn huge income if you produce the better eBook, for this I have outlined the concepts for creating and selling eBooks online.

Choose your niche topic

Choosing the niche topic is the first step of your eBook creation assignment, I strongly recommend to choose the topics that exactly matches your skills or hobbies that really helpful to create a successful eBook rather than selecting the hot of the topic like “Earn 100$ dollars in a day, while you sleep” .

Don’t just choose the topic that seems to be most popular one these parameter will not helps you alone to create your successful eBook but understanding the niche topic where you can do your best of your efforts or best of your results that will be the suitable topic for you create the book.

For example if you are a serious hobbyist of caring your pets then you may choose this as your niche topic for creating eBooks online. Every niche has their own audience so doesn’t be worry about selling your eBook after creating, if you really want to know about the popularity of the topic you are going to select or want to know the hot topics of your preferred niche then the best place you can look around is social networking sites, newsgroups and forum where ever the serious discussion going on. Some of the sites you can look for your niche topic are Digg.com, deli.co.us, Digital point forum

Use effective writing style

After choosing the niche topic, the second decision you should make is to choose your writing style of your eBook. Reading the eBooks is always different than the reading the printed books, being the read over digital medium the eBooks should be contains special parameters than the traditional books

  • Clear navigation to the reference URL
  • Use Image when necessary
  • Break your statements that help easy to read

Make your eBook stands alone

Don’t let your work be the list of just another eBook on the niche topic but make them stand alone so that it will grasp the viewer’s attention. Making the eBooks that self promotes themselves is the best method to become successful eBook. If you want your eBook as a self promoting one then you have to look various parameters like

  • The eBook best address the existing problem
  • The eBook provides best or alternative solutions to the existing problem
  • The eBook talk about solve the problem easy and with efficient way

If your eBook will not follows any of the above parameters then the eBook considered be the another junk file with web

Design your eBook cover

It is most important that your eBook cover should be designed and looks professionally so that it will get attention of the readers even at the first impression. If you eBook cover failed to attract the attention of viewers at the first time then it is hard to turn them to consider to buy it. So design the eBook cover that looks professionals for this you can have two options to choose

  • You can design your own eBook cover using software like Adobe Photoshop or special eBook cover editing software like TBS Cover editor
  • Otherwise you may hire the designer or a company that designs the eBook covers for your eBook project

EBook editing software

When you are writing your eBook you need the software for word processing operation and PDF or Exe file conversion. Word processing software like office 2007 or open office will helps you to format the contents and checks the grammatical errors of the content, the PDF conversion software like Nitro PDF will helps you

When you are writing your ebook , you need two important software

Software for word processing that helps you to organize, format and checking spell check errors for this you may choose paid software like Windows office 2007 or free software like open office

After creating the write-up you should convert this into your eBook, your eBook can be in PDF format or may be in Executable format. But most people like to read it as PDF file that can be portable to any operating system where as the executable format eBooks are limited with certain operating system but only the best part with Executable eBook format (CHM) is to control over eBook license. To convert your document file into Portable Document Format (PDF) you will need special software like Nitro PDF or you may use special plug-in for conversion

EBook promotional medium

If you are looking to promote your eBook over web then you have lot of options to choose, you can promote your eBook with following methods

  • By posting the listing on forums with signatures and posting it on corresponding post threads
  • By posting listing with free classifieds
  • By posing with online business directories
  • By promoting with video sharing sites with YouTube
  • By hosting the certain chapters with Scribd
  • Making on PPT presentation and host it on Slide share
  • Promoting the eBooks by associating with high traffic blogs
  • Apply for eBook review with fellow bloggers and request to post in on their posts
  • Join with affiliate networks and offering best deal for your affiliate promoters
  • Join and promote the product with Amazon Network and eBay Network

EBook sales and support channel

After promoting your voice over web you have to setup your sales and support channel for your eBook where you have to manage your sales, distribute the eBook and support your clients. You may setup your channel with your own website or you may join with other affiliate networks to let them to do things for you.

When you are setting up your channel on your own website you should take care of various issues like secured and user friendly shopping cart design, inventory management, eBook file protection, support ticket system for clients and so on. If you are beginner of this stage then you may better rely with other affiliate network like ClickBank , linkShare and ejunkie where they can provide all these services for you by paying the little setup fees with them .

Protect your digital assets

Protecting the digital assets is the nightmare for most of companies who are handling digital products. Digital products vulnerable due to their property of easily copied and distributed online. In our criteria we are promoting our eBooks online the following suggestions I can recommend with you is

Register your work with copyright association and it will helps you most of time to protect you interests

To create the affiliate network that having minimum margin to yourself and maximum margin to you affiliate (Being an digital product It will not hurts your pockets)

For example 70= your affiliates 30=you , my idea is to convert the every possible publisher into affiliate so that it can be promoted by everyone so that most of them wouldn’t like to miss this opportunity and don’t want to share free online.

Choose your eBook name most common one so it cannot be easily findable over web .In other words choose the eBook name with most competitive keyword term on search engines so that the eBook stealers don’t locate your book easily with search engines( Most of the digital asset stealers are using , hazardous search engine query techniques for stealing digital assets )

Always look around warez site about distribution of your eBook, when it looks shared try to delete quick before its being duplicated or mirrored with other persons or network. You can contact the file sharing the sites about the copyright violation and request to remove the file from the network

Other websites for your reference

Adobe Photoshop- World famous photo editing software comes with lot of good features (Here it will helps you to design your eBook cover) ( Paid Software)

TBS Cover Editor Software- Best feature rich and user-friendly software for design your software cover design and eBook cover design (Paid Software) (Highly Recommended)

Office 2007 – Microsoft’s popular word processing application used with most of windows operating system platforms (Paid Software)

Open office – free word processing application with lot of goodies available for both windows and Linux operating system

Nitro PDF – Create your PDF file from various file formats easily with this software, optimized file size and best conversion support are few of the features of this software (Paid Software) (Highly Recommended)

SlideShare – Host and share your PowerPoint presentation over web with free online tool

YouTube – World famous video sharing website (Here You can use for promoting our eBook online)

Scribd – host and share your PDF file over web comes with lot of features like auto linking with face book ,inbuilt mini social networking and much more .( Here you can use this for hosting the certain chapters of your eBook and link back to the sales channel for further reading or buying the Complete Ebook)

Digital Point Forum – A good place where you can discuss and share your experience, High traffic and lead generating place (Here you can promote your product with your signatures and on the market place of the forum)

Amazon Network- world’s biggest market place where you can sell your digital and physical products (Here we can promote your eBook)

Ebay Network – Another internationally available market place where you can sell your products by paying the little commission (Here we can promote your eBook)

ClickBank Network- Best Affiliate network to promote your digital goods

LinkShare Network- Best Affiliate network to promote your digital goods

Ejunkie Nework- Best Affiliate network to promote your digital goods

PayPal Program- sends and receives money online with secured network

Copyright – Register your product with your copyright information to protect your interests on your digital assets

Alternative methods to earn money Online when you have failed to make money directly from your blog


You have ever frustrated about failed to earn money from your blog even though you have got very good idea and your blog, then this article is for you. It is nothing be the mistake that you have failed to make the money from your blog, but this is the time you should think about the other alternatives that helps you to stabilize your economy.

Write some eBooks and sell over affiliate programs

If you have got really some fascinating ideas, shortcuts or something that helps the readers then you may start write up your eBook on the niche subjects. Selling the eBooks are one of the top earning program over online so don’t be panic but only thing you must strongly consider before starting this

Is your eBook really provides feature rich information with your viewers?

There are lot of viewers are waiting to pay for the best eBooks that makes their work much easier ,so you have to write up your eBook so that it can be sold fast . But don’t worry about selling the eBook online ,like readers of eBooks ,there are thousands of publishers ( Here we call it as affiliates ) are eagerly waiting for promoting the affiliate sales for best selling eBooks so only thing you have do is to write the eBooks that easily grasps the attention of your readers and make itself sold .

There are hundreds of affiliate networks are available but I am recommending this below providers who are the top affiliate networks for selling digital goods.

clickbank-affiliate-money

Fig: ClickBank  Program

ClickBank Program

Ejunkie Program

LinkShare Program

You can promote your eBooks in variety of ways not by relying with affiliate network alone ,but if you concentrate on affiliate network with best approach you will surely get easy money with out fail.

Note:

To setup your own affiliate programs with above networks you may have to pay little money to setup your store front, but if you have serious about earning money surely it will worth your dollars

Provide Training program on your niche

Providing the training on your niche will also the lucrative money making method online, most of the internet aspirants are looking with internet to get information on their niche subjects. So if you are offering the best training program on your niche topic then you are the leader! You can offer the training both online and offline schemes depending upon your flexibility.

Provide consultant services

Most of the internet users are information seekers but not all of them getting the real information that they want and also many of them doesn’t know about the internet and the opportunities spread over the internet. So by offering the consultant services that best addresses their problems or needs you can make handsome income.

But what kind of consultant services I can provide? This will be the question arises in your mind right but its all depends upon your specialization where you can do your best. But for sample I have listed some of the consultant services here

  • Offering the digital product promotion services online
  • Writing the best resume model for the jobseekers
  • Helping the viewers to setting up their first website or redesign the excising one
  • Helping the house owners to sell their houses or plots online

The list is endless it goes on…………

You can offer your consultant services with the help of Expert advice services available online, by registering with their services you can setup your place where you can met thousands of advice seekers those who are ready to pay for your services.

liveperson-services

Fig : LivePerson Program

LivePerson is one of the best expert advice network where you can start your consultant service

Offer web design service

If you are really having very good resources, manpower then you can request others to design their web design requirements ( if you can do the business if you are not having this requirements using outsourcing the services but you should have better insight over services to get succeed) . You can get logo design, brochure design, template design, eBooks cover design, software cover design, banner design, icon design and you can do much more with web design services. Offering the web design services are not only generated money but in future you can extends your service to other technologies or new levels like setting up your own company

You can get the web design project with both online and offline, if you are looking to promote the web design service then you must really don’t miss to register your profile with the following websites

elance-services

Fig: Elance Program

Elance.com

Guru.com

Where you can register your profile about your services and browse the projects on your niche topic, thousands of service providers are using this freelance project networks to promote their services

Offer Paid Installation service

So you have got your experience with setting up your own blog already, why not you tried to do the same thing with others this method not only help the others but you can also get handsome money for offering the services .

Blog customization services

Like fresh website design services there are thousands of users are looking over web for their blog customization services to redesign their template, optimize website load time, SEO friendly design, CSS optimization, flash optimization, custom logo design, newsletter design, plug-in design, widget design and much more.

Blog customization services became hot of the trend with blog masters, if you are offering best service on this subject then you will became the master of the game. You can get prospectus customers just by visiting their niche blog on your subjects and asking them personally will works better otherwise you can use traditional methods like exploring the opportunities with freelance networks also works well.

Sell affiliate services offline

Most of them concentrating selling affiliate sales online and earning handsome money, but I know that you have problem with monetizing the sales with your blog (The article is here because the problem with monetization of you blog, but don’t worry, just go ) so you can consider to promote the affiliate products or services with offline. Not all of them trust the online affiliate products or they may not able to grasp the information from their site, your works starts here.

Nothing works other than word of mouth , if have really got good experience with specific product means you can better recommend your friends, colleagues and with your networks and helping them make a sales with your affiliate account and earn money

Earn money for writing articles

Writing the articles for websites or article directory is the fast and assured method of earning money online . websites like about.com ,ehow and other sites are offering fixed and variable amount for the every approved articles with their website. By registering as an author with websites you can draw both vast readership and also the money in your pockets

about-author-program

Fig: About.com Program

http://beaguide.about.com/

Sell Links from your blogs

This is not recommended method but you can try this method with caution. If your site is well indexed with search engines and have decent Page Rank then you can sell your links to other websites or blogs.

Google will not penalize when you have better control with outgoing links with your niche topic so you can sell your links to other websites and earn money

This list is not ended up here, I will update the more details in coming days. Until then stay tuned

Making money with PayPerPost generate revenue for review

Do you ever wonder about earning money by writing review on your blog, but it’s true. By writing sponsored reviews on your blog, you can earn reasonable money for your every post it is pretty much easier and assured method of earning money on blog.

About Pay Per Post Program

As the name suggests PayPerPost(PPP) is the best program that pays dollars for every sponsored posts you made with your blog. PayPerPost program connects Advertisers who seeks reviews about their products or services and publishers (Here Blog owners) who would like to earn money from their blog posts. The best part of PayPerPost with other paying program is, PPP will accepts the blogs having minimum traffic and even the blog has no page rank at all.

Pay Per Post for Bloggers

PayPerPost is the best medium for bloggers to earn money by simply writing reviews about advertiser’s products or services. Most of the bloggers are earning handsome money by posting reviews with PayPerPost Program.

Pay Per Post for Advertisers

If you are an advertiser you will earn

  • Quality review about your products or services
  • Quality link back from content rich pages
  • Real world traffic from blog posts

And these all above features comes with reasonable cost once you have applied as an advertiser and Posting your job with PPP.

Eligibility for applying with PPP as a Publisher

  • Your blog must be written on English language
  • Your blog should be 30 days old and at least 30 posts should be made within the past 30 days
  • Your blog should have only one author
  • Your blog posts should use DO follow (your blog posts should not use NO follow tags)
  • You should have PayPal Account to receive money

( if you don’t have PayPal Account, you can create one at free of cost )

Steps for earning money from PayPerPost as a Publisher (Blogger)

  • Go to PayPerPost Program and signup as publisher
  • Add your Blogs for approval with PPP
  • After approval you will be informed with your mail.
  • After getting the confirmation, you can claim the review assignments that can be available at your PPP Dashboard