Do you trust CJ?

I'm not sure I agree with the revenue reported from Commision Junction. My clicks are very specific and highly targetted yet my conversion rate is almost non-existant.

I can not give exact details but I believe my conversion rate should be MUCH higher.

How do CJ's clients report conversions? Is this realtime? Does CJ hold any accountability?

 

Well, to be honest, can you trust any of the ad networks, from Adsense to Chitika to CJ? We all have to just accept their reporting as fact. You can argue with them, but I don't think you'd win anything. It is what it is, I guess.

 

It's not that I don't trust CJ, I just really, really suck at using them. I have very targetted visitors too, I choose the suppliers with care, I use them in different places in the site, I get clickthroughs and I get zip, nada, Sweet F.A. in revenue from any merchants from CJ. I've totally lost interest in even looking at my CJ control panel so that shows how bad it is.

I'd love to find a network or independant merchant that I click with. I am working on it but I really think the problem is just that I am not good at the whole affiliate publisher thing.

 

I've never trusted their reporting. Don't even get me started on them cancelling accounts for inactivity. That just makes no sence to me. I think they're just too big for their britches

Peace,
Lee

 

Frankly I find them difficult and unwiedy to use. Their CP is atrocious and their link creation system is primitive. It takes forever to move between pages, and I'm on broadband. It's like working with a dinosaur in the 21st century.

 

I have argued once with CJ, and I got back my commission.

 

You obviously don't have a Linkshare account. That horrid P.O.S. makes CJ's interface feel like the Four frickin' Seasons.

 

I don't trust their reporting. I have caught a few merchants that haven't tracked over the years and, after a dozen emails with detailed evidence, CJ do eventually concede that the links aren't tracking and fix them (they don't publicise it to affilaites though).

CJ take a fat monthly fee whether a merchant converts or not, let us not forget. So they have little incentive to get rid of non-converters.

 

Heh heh, I actually have used Linkshare's before, and yes, you're right, it is a royal P.O.S. as well.

 

Yes. LINKSHARE. I've had no results with them. Plenty of impressions and clicks, but nothing to show for revenue...I've bene tryign them out for 2 years now. I find it hard to believe it does that horribly. Maybe it is just me.

But since this is a CJ gripe I had better put my two cents in. I agree, it is in their best interest to make sure reporting is kosher.

 

How do we know that the affiliates can or do report correctly? Is this done in realtime as well? Yesterday I disabled/changed all of my CJ links because I had a bunch of well targeted clicks that resulted in no sales. Today I have 1 sale but no clicks. How can I have a sale with no click?

I am trying out ShareASale.com right now. Preliminarily their site seems functional but not very efficient.

I've attached part of the screen shot from CJ for todays stats.

 

It could be delayed stats or a customer who clicked yesterday, bookmarked the site and came back today to make a purchase.

 

They are certainly picky about who they report correct stats against.

I've had many people claim they bought products using links from sites - an yet I go zero commission. When I contacted them they said it was the Affiliate who had the tracking problem..... funny thing is when I spoke with the affiliate they even bought test products through my site and didnt get the stats!! - clearly the problem is with CJ. Also the affiliate is receiving correct stats from others no problems.... looks like they are picky about who they pay commission too.

 

I hope to be approved for Azoogle ads by next week.

So far the ShareASale seems like their reporting is very quick (realtime) but is very lacking.

So how accountable should CJ be for their clients?

 

"How do we know that the affiliates can or do report correctly? Is this done in realtime as well?"

To make sure you can always do a test purchase. Reporting is pretty much real time and they update the reports at the beginning of each hour, you can check the posting times. Some merchants also batch their transactions, so they might update once a week, once every few times etc, usually it will say in the merchant details. Overall I do great with CJ, the trick is finding good merchants that work for you.

 

Hey, welcome over to DP, TrustNo1

It is the merchants that scam you, not CJ. Some will reverse transactions, subvert the affiliate traffic to pages that say the user should call to order, etc... CJ has no interest in scamming you and not reporting sales-- that is cutting out of their pie as well. Underhanded merchants have a definite interest in not reporting sales. As it was said, find good merchants in the network and stick with them. Many people make a living from CJ.

 

What I'm asking is should we trust CJ to only provide reliable merchants?

It seems like it is more like they don't care about you if the merchant is a scammer.

 

>>What I'm asking is should we trust CJ to only provide reliable merchants?

Definitely not.

There are other networks that are better, or at least profess to be more vigilant, at screening out scamming merchants: Shareasale.com and Avantlink.com to start. If CJ has a merchant that you can't find a substitute for elsewhere, it won't hurt to try them out and see if they convert. If not, move on to something else.

>>It seems like it is more like they don't care about you if the merchant is a scammer.

That is a fair statement. Network quality at CJ is not held to a high standard... but you can still make a lot of money from their merchants.