Does CJ's tracking often miss transactions?

Discussion in 'Commission Junction' started by SNC1981, Jul 27, 2008.

  1. #1
    I run a company that sells custom newsletters to people who then send them to their customers.

    I've been recommending a program to my clients through CJ.

    My clients have been sending me their receipt of purchase and I then offer them assistance with the program.

    Too many times I see that I did not get the commission from CJ for these transactions. I've had to send the receipts to the advertiser's account manager who then puts it into CJ for me and I then get the credit.

    The account manager has been very good about this. I'm thinking of branching out to recommending other products and services through CJ, but I'm concerned that I will miss out on commissions because of CJ's apparent problem with tracking them.

    What problems have any of you out there experienced with lost commissions like this? Does CJ often have a problem tracking transactions?
     
    SNC1981, Jul 27, 2008 IP
  2. Johu

    Johu Peon

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    #2
    Problems lie on the advertiser's site, not on CJ's side. If the advertiser's site is coded properly with the CJ tracking code, everything should match up.
     
    Johu, Jul 27, 2008 IP
  3. mikyur

    mikyur Peon

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    #3
    I have tried many affiliate programs on the net. I would say CJ is one of the best in terms of tracking.
     
    mikyur, Jul 28, 2008 IP
  4. vitalbusiness

    vitalbusiness Peon

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    #4

    Completely agree. They will give you everything the advertiser owes you. One advertiser dumped me because I brought too much "unwanted" traffic to it. I complained about it to CJ staff and guess what? That advertiser paid me $4000 (four thousand dollars) in penalties (or from the purchases from unwanted traffic).
     
    vitalbusiness, Jul 28, 2008 IP
  5. SNC1981

    SNC1981 Peon

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    #5
    I sure hope they pay out, because I've earned a large amount from them. Thanks for the reply.
     
    SNC1981, Aug 2, 2008 IP
  6. buzzerhutdotcom

    buzzerhutdotcom Peon

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    #6
    you better save those reciepts and contact advertisor to pay commission for missing sales .. its not just with cj i faced this problem with almost all networks ..
     
    buzzerhutdotcom, Aug 3, 2008 IP
  7. SNC1981

    SNC1981 Peon

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    #7
    Great Advice. How do you collect receipts from customers that you don't know?
     
    SNC1981, Aug 3, 2008 IP
  8. buzzerhutdotcom

    buzzerhutdotcom Peon

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    #8
    offer them incentive free ebooks software etc,, like this if you complete sale from following link please send us back your reciept to collect your free software ebook ....
    but better alternative is talk to merchant and tell him about it and if everything works fine its ok otherwise promote some other affiliate program which pay same/similar amount ...
     
    buzzerhutdotcom, Aug 3, 2008 IP
  9. FightRice

    FightRice Peon

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    #9
    Judging from the class action lawsuit against CJ from former employees and publishers, I'm pretty sure CJ is failing to track your sales properly or credit your account.
     
    FightRice, Aug 3, 2008 IP
  10. eambrausa

    eambrausa Peon

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    #10
    yes...you're right!
     
    eambrausa, Aug 3, 2008 IP
  11. SNC1981

    SNC1981 Peon

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    #11
    At least with the few companies I've been working with the account reps have been good about putting the sales back in there for me.
     
    SNC1981, Aug 6, 2008 IP
  12. tvmatt

    tvmatt Peon

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    #12
    The lawsuit has nothing to do with former employees, AFAIK. Anyway, that lawsuit is about CJ not policing enough for software that steals commissions. It has nothing to do with tracking.

    CJ has no reason NOT to track. CJ makes its money by charging their advertisers a percentage (usually 30%) on top of the commissions that are paid to publishers. For example, if an advertiser pays $10,000 to affiliates, they then owe CJ around $3,000. If CJ doesn't track some commissions, they don't receive their fee. Why wouldn't they track?

    All "tracking issues" occur for the following reasons:
    • User has cookies disabled
    • User has cleared their cookies
    • User has entered through another marketing channel (or another affiliate link) after clicking your affiliate link
    • User signed up/purchased product after the number of valid cookie days (ex. an advertiser has a 15 day cookie, but your user comes back & purchases on the 20th day)
    • User has entered a promotional code not valid with the affiliate marketing channel
    • Advertiser's website is passing invalid characters in the Order ID field or Amount field (technical issue that is usually caught during the initial testing phase)
    • Advertiser's website does not show the pixel (technical issue - this could be caused by cookie problems on the advertiser's side, improper coding, somebody accidentally deleting the tracking pixel during updates, etc...)
    If the advertiser implements CJ's pixel properly, it WILL track every sale. If the advertiser does not implement the pixel properly, it doesn't matter what tracking system you use - they'll all track improperly.
     
    tvmatt, Aug 6, 2008 IP
  13. Guidance

    Guidance Peon

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    #13
    Their problem with tracking transaction is the biggest problem of cj. They have some weakness in their tracking system, and sometimes the system is down.
     
    Guidance, Sep 6, 2008 IP
  14. offerbrokers

    offerbrokers Peon

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    #14
    CJ's tracking has always been an issue, but some merchants also have been known to have issues as well within the system.
     
    offerbrokers, Sep 7, 2008 IP
  15. biko

    biko Active Member

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    #15
    Yes, I also have noticed this many times, but who is ideal. They are big and going bigger.
     
    biko, Sep 7, 2008 IP
  16. tvmatt

    tvmatt Peon

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    #16
    The tracking system is never down. The reporting system may be taken down from time to time for maintenance, but I can't recall an instance of the tracking system being down. I work on the advertiser & publisher side, so I can tell you that numbers always match up very closely (if not exactly) between advertisers' backend numbers & CJ's reported stats.
     
    tvmatt, Sep 7, 2008 IP