I dont think CJ is doing anything underhanded. Fact is, in most cases, it takes a high volume of traffic before you see any affiliate results on the types of affiliates that CJ has. I use CJ for a couple of affiliates on one site, simply because my affiliate company of choice doesnt have alot to offer for that site. Another reason is because I found my current affiliate that I use through their actual website, and they referred me to CJ for their affiliate program. Outside of that, I go for a more person to person affiliate company like azoogle. Its nice to have a manager monitoring my site with me and looking for links that have better chances of converting. Makes my job alot easier.
I agree with your post except for that statement. It doesn't take a lot of traffic.. in fact I'd say it takes a lot less traffic to make decent money with CJ vs. Adsense. You just need the right type of traffic-- the type ready to purchase. I also use Azoogle but they are limited if you deal in product oriented sites. They have "offers" and pay you on action completion, but what if I want to sell one specific product? Or compare a lot of different products? CJ and SAS offer the sort of product specific linking and datafeeds that you need for product oriented sites.
Thanks for the welcome TheHoff. "What I'm asking is should we trust CJ to only provide reliable merchants?" Ultimately your stats will tell you everything you need to know about a merchant. I have a big shopping site with hundreds of merchants and do well with a lot of merchants at CJ and other networks. The network is one thing but the main thing is the merchant and finding good ones that work for you regardless of where they're at. Over time and some trial and error you'll find some good ones. My favorite ones are the ones that produce month in and month out over the years.
How many clicks on the CJ links are you getting a month? It could be the merchant, don't know. Is it the sites in your sig?
Yes, the first one. I've had 544 clicks in total - about half of that was in March. When I saw that the indies were actually giving me revenue I removed CJ from many hot spots but there are still relevant places in the site where I would expect a clickthrough to be relevant. I don't know whether to just dump CJ or take it on board that I can make money with it and perhaps I have just been to lazy, impatient or not creative enough.
It does help TheHoff and in a way, I have done what your blog suggests for the independants, while more or less expecting CJ to convert on its own. I probably have had too high expectations of CJ and guess I'll give it another try. Thanks
If the indie programs are in the exact same markets as the CJ programs, selling the same things at similar prices, then they should convert just as well as the CJ merchants. It all depends on the quality of the merchant's site and of their order process. If you have one merchant converting much better than another similar one, follow the order process through on both sites and see if anything jumps out at you. Does the merchant really push their 1-800 number or online chat ordering? That will kill your affiliate conversions. There are good merchants in CJ and good indie ones.. tough to blame the network for poor merchant conversions so maybe you just got lucky with the independent but haven't found the right ones in the networks yet.
No, I don't think you should rely on CJ to "only" provide reliable merchants. I do however think most of their merchants are reliable. Also, just because you get a ton of clicks through an affiliate link doesn't necessarily mean that they will convert into a lead or sale. Most leads/sales come from highly-targeted clicks generated by consumers actively seeking a specific service or product. Don't be mislead by clicks generated by other webmasters visiting your site, or people simply "surfing" the web. Lastly, it's not a rarity to see a sale without a click on any given day. Most merchants allow cookies to be stored anywhere from 1 to 3 months. This means that if your visitor clicks on your affiliate link today, and goes back to the merchant's landing page a month later to make a purchase, you still get credited for the sale or lead.