CJ Affiliate Review
If you’re looking for new affiliate networks that can help you make the most of your blog or niche website, you have definitely come to the right place. In today’s article, we’re looking at one of the best-known affiliate platforms in the world right now — CJ Affiliate, formerly known as Commission Junction.
We’re discussing how legit it is, how you can sign up for it, what tools it offers its affiliates, what brands you can promote, and what types of products you can recommend to your blog audience thanks to it.
CJ Affiliate Review
What is CJ Affiliate marketing? Is CJ Affiliate legit?
This is one of the oldest companies in the domain of affiliate networks. It has actually been around since 1998, making it approximately as old as the likes of ClickBank (which we have reviewed in another article on this website).
The old name of this affiliate platform is Commission Junction, but in 2003, it was acquired by ValueClick, which renamed it into Conversant CJ Affiliate.
Compared to other affiliate networks, this one is much more trustworthy. We’ve looked at heaps of reviews from actual affiliates, and most recommend it just as much as they used to Amazon Associates (probably before they slashed their commissions).
On the other hand, we’d like to note that the CJ Affiliate network is somewhat limited to digital products, which means that if you are looking to promote physical ones, you have to direct your attention to something different, such as ShareASale.
How does CJ Affiliate work?
Like any other network, you first have to go through a signup process, get approved, and then join each affiliate program individually. Naturally, with some platforms, you do not have to handle this hassle as you’ll be auto-approved on most programs — but we’d say that this allows CJ Affiliate to better separate the wheat from the chaff.
What’s interesting is that the signup and approval process really isn’t a hassle in itself. We couldn’t help noticing that they also have an option that you can tick in the form and that lets you apply even if your blog hasn’t yet launched.
This means that the CJ Affiliate requirements are much more decent compared to those of other networks.
Once you have created your account, you will basically have access to all of the affiliate marketing tools that CJ Affiliate can offer you. One thing we do have to note is that the interface is extremely user-friendly and definitely does not look like it’s taken out of a 90s catalog (ClickBank, we’re looking at you!).
Once you log in, you get access to everything you possibly need, from your account information to the advertisers you can use, your affiliate links, reports, widgets, insights, and placements.
This makes the whole experience a lot easier compared to that you’d have with other networks, and we might have noted this before, but if you’re into the digital/educational spaces, it definitely pays off to have a look at CJ Affiliate.
Links and widgets can be created just as easily, although we’d say that the design of the second could be more or less improved. Some of them are anything but visually appealing.
Brands you can promote from CJ Affiliate
CJ Affiliate brands come in many flavors, and you can pick the right one based on a number of different factors. For instance, you can select the right one depending on the specific type of merchant you’re looking for, the status (whether it’s accepting a new CJ Affiliate publisher right now or not), the country/language, area, and even the currency.
A very interesting aspect of sifting through the brands is that you can actually organize the results based on how much you can earn with each one. Some of the filters you can apply are network earnings, 7-day EPC and 3-month EPC.
In other words, you can specifically look for the brands that can make you the most money.
There is a significant drawback that needs to be considered and that we feel compelled to mention in this section. You have to be approved by these brands, and if you have not generated any sales on the CJ Affiliate network, you literally have no chance of being accepted.
Unfortunately, that means that if you are a new affiliate, it will take you some time for you to generate a number of sales (sometimes even several months) to be able to access all the merchants on the platform and have a good likelihood of being approved.
CJ Affiliate payment methods
If you’re looking for an answer to the question ‘What is the CJ Affiliate commission rate?’, you’re not going to get a clear one no matter what article on this network you end up reading on the Internet. The commission largely varies from one advertiser to the next.
However, what we can definitely tell you is that you can get your earnings after 30 days since a purchase has taken place. They also have a set schedule, which means that you can get paid on the 20th of every month.
When it comes to the actual payment methods, they are much more limited compared to those that other affiliate platforms can offer. To date, you can be paid only through cheque or direct deposit.
The good thing is that even if you are not based in the United States, the United Kingdom, or whatever other country where you can be paid through direct deposit, you can still use Payoneer as you’ll have access to a US bank account and use the ‘CJ International Payments’ feature in the platform.
In the end, one of the most significant disadvantages when it comes to payments is that they don’t have Paypal available. However, there are many ways of circumventing this drawback, and we definitely recommend considering Payoneer or a similar service if you do not want to deal with the hassle of the cheque.
Another important thing worth noting here is that you can be paid only after you have acquired at least $50 in commissions.
What kind of support can you get from CJ Affiliate?
First of all, the functionality and design of this website make it possible for lots of publishers to never need the assistance of an affiliate manager or somebody from customer service. However, if you do run into an issue and want to talk to an actual human being, there is a Support Center available.
This section is packed with answers to most of the questions you might have, so it makes things a lot easier on the whole. If you really can’t find any answer in this part of the website, you can contact support and communicate with someone either through Chat or through email.
The downside is that there is no phone number you can call, at least not on the website, but if you search for it online, you’ll definitely stumble upon it.
In any case, compared to other networks that we have analyzed for this series of articles, CJ Affiliate is a company that offers great customer service. Believe it or not, some of the platforms we have come across offer no support at all, so you’d be left to your own devices even at the worst of times.
Reasons to use the CJ Affiliate program
Here are some of the things that we like about this network.
Reports
Both the interface and the way everything is organized allow you to have a look at your stats and see what’s missing, what the programs that are generating you the most money are, and everything else you might need in this sense.
What’s more, real-time tracking is a thing with this platform, which means that you can view everything that’s happening even as someone makes a purchase.
Many brands/product options
While there aren’t that many brands on this platform as you might think, and you are definitely ‘forced’ to recommend digital products more than physical ones, the ones that you will find here are extremely well-known brands.
To give you several examples, CJ Affiliate works with the likes of Zappos, Verizon, and Barnes & Noble. The fact that the brands are well-known and even for those that you might not have heard of before, a simple Google search will tell you that they’re reputable companies is a great advantage.
Unfortunately, on other platforms (such as ClickBank), lots of merchants get auto-approved, so the network ends up being packed with brands and products not really worth writing home about.
Easy tools for marketing
As we have previously mentioned, creating affiliate links and finding and using widgets is extremely easy with CJ Affiliate. There’s actually the option of you adding a line of code into your website and then automatically turning text/product mentions into affiliate links.
Read more: A guide to buying premade affiliate websites
CJ Affiliate alternatives
ShareASale
This one is actually the best option you have available if you want to recommend physical products to your blog or website readers. They work with large brands such as Etsy (although Etsy also has its own affiliate program, by the way), Reebok, and more.
The good thing about ShareASale is that it’s quite trustworthy and it also offers support in case you run into a problem.
JVZoo
This one is a pretty good choice if you still want to promote digital products and you’re looking for something a bit different than CJ Affiliate. We’ve heard mixed opinions about JVZoo, though, so you will have to do a bit of research on your own.
The network is user-friendly, though, and it also accepts most publishers.
Rakuten Marketing
This is a very large affiliate network that’s been increasing in popularity over the past several years. You are not going to find any digital products or services here — only physical ones, so it speaks to a certain type of affiliates.
Another downside is that the approval process can be quite lengthy and complicated, and they don’t accept everyone. Your website needs to have a quite decent number of unique visitors to make you eligible.
Market Health
This one is geared toward bloggers in the health and fitness niche. Market Health specializes in supplements and other things that can take people’s health goals to a whole new level.
The downside is that the niche is quite limited to these products, but Market Health is a great choice if you really are in this space. Their commissions are generous, their support is excellent, and they can even negotiate the commission rates with you if you’re making a lot of sales.
Amazon Associates
This one is perhaps the last option when it comes to affiliate marketing, and that’s because it’s not even a network in itself. It also has some of the lowest commissions in the world, and the cookie duration is just 24 hours.
For this reason, we’d argue that Amazon Associates is good just for diversifying your income since the marketplace is pretty much known by anyone in the civilized world.
CJ Affiliate vs. ClickBank
Each of these has both advantages and disadvantages. We’d say that the most significant reason to use CJ Affiliate over ClickBank would be that there aren’t a lot of spammy products on the platform — not at all, actually. Whereas ClickBank is really known for this, so you’ll have to waste a lot of time trying to tell which brands are worth promoting and which ones are not.
There are two main areas where ClickBank is in fact better than CJ Affiliate, but it’s not the user experience, not the marketing tools, or the vendors – it’s just the minimum payout threshold and the ways in which you can be paid.
While with CJ Affiliate, the only payment methods you have available are cheque and direct deposit, ClickBank allows you to use several different methods, including Wire Transfer and Payoneer. However, we’d argue that this is not a disadvantage since pretty much anyone can create a Payoneer account and use both.
On the other hand, the minimum payout threshold is $10 on ClickBank and $50 on CJ Affiliate.
Final thoughts
In the end, CJ Affiliate is perhaps one of the best affiliate networks that publishers have at their disposal, especially those that are starting their affiliate journey.
The platform is stable, works properly, and it gives you all the tools and reports you need, not to mention that most of the brands you can promote are already fairly well-known.
Need help with your SEO or digital marketing efforts? We have lots of plans and courses available. Get in touch to find out how we can be of assistance!
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
Back to top
