Theres a few merchants that caught my eye and some of them require to look at applications manually and others just automatically turned me down. Why is this and how do I get my profile to be accepted by most merchants?
Automatic rejections are most likely based on your location. Manual rejections are usually because your site doesn't meet the advertiser's requirements (privacy policy etc), or because your website is garbage
Yes, if you are auto rejected that means they don't support your country. If I get auto rejected and I'm still interested in the advertiser I contact them directly. You can find a contact e-mail address in the profile of the advertiser. Just explain what kind of traffic you have and what is your website about. Worked for me all the time.
I keep getting auto-declined myself. I think it is not very smart of CJ and the advertisers to judge where a publisher gets his traffic, solely by their addresses. They must have no idea that non-US residents are driving a significant part of web economy... I thought about sending emails directly to affiliate managers, and to some I did (did this only today, so I can't report on results.) Most other advertisers, though, don't even have any email address listed. Guess you have to go to the website and contact through there.
Location should not be used for acceptability. A person may be living in Baghdad, Iraq, yet most of his site traffic comes from the US. E.g. a US soldier blogger or a UN peacekeeper blogger. I think CJ should change that location parameter.
This is a good point and interesting discussion... CJ does indeed allow advertisers to auto-decline based on the geographical location of the publisher based on the latter's registration info... I've had some success in writing to the affiliate manager (AM) referenced on the advertiser detail page in CJ... Make sure your sites have quality content too... Rob