What Don't You Like About Commission Junction?

I'm interested in hearing what everyone doesn't like about CJ... I just started using them fairly recently and have to say that they have some major problems when you compare them to other affiliate networks.

It's almost shocking that one of the biggest (if not the biggest) affiliate companies can't even create a website that loads quickly. You'd think with all the money that they make they could at least buy some servers or some developers to create a website that doesn't take forever to load. OK, enough of that mini rant...

Here are 3 things I can't stand about CJ:

1. I'll say it again... Their website is waaaaay to slow, it crashes, doesn't let you log in at times... It's unbelievable the amount of time that just myself has wasted, while waiting for their damn website to load (this has nothing to do with my internet connection). Think about how much more money CJ would make if they actually had a fast loading site. It would give more time for affiliates to actually do money making activities.

Creating a faster site, would have the affect of helping publishers and CJ make more money, because publishers would spend less time trying navigate, and load pages on the CJ site. Create a better website... get a better return CJ!!!

2. I also find it unbelievable that you have to wait hours, sometimes a half a day or more to find out what you made in sales or leads. For CJ, to not have real-time or near real-time sales stats is simply horrendous. There are plenty of much smaller affiliate networks that do realtime stats within the last five minutes. In the age of Web 2.0 / 2008, cheap servers, realtime processing, and everything else, it's absolutely terrible that it takes them up to a day(maybe it's more for some people's accounts) to update your sales / leads for the day. This should update every five minutes...in real-time.

3. The third issue that I can not believe CJ doesn't do (at least for small publishers) is to show both SID tracking for converted and non-converted subids. Being able to see what's not converting into sales can be just as important as what is converting. Sure you can figuring this all out if you go and reference it to your various ppc accounts or what not, but being able to see this right in front of you, is absolutely essential in my opinion.

It's just so amazing that CJ doesn't do these things. You have much smaller affiliate networks that give every affiliate this type of tracking and control in near-realtime (and there sites actually load super fast, unlike CJ).

At any rate, those are my three big issues with CJ. I'd be interested to hear what other people think. Also it would be great if someone from CJ who reads this post is able to respond to these issues. Is CJ working on any of these problems... Even LinkShare just recently updated their site, what are you doing CJ... anything?

 

Advertisers using pixel tracking (and not batching once per day - that can happen in CPA networks too) will have transactions show up in the transaction reports within an hour or so. Performance reports take longer to show.

 

You can easily track which SIDs aren't converting, by tracking clicks with your own script. While some CPA networks allow you to track this, I don't think that any of the major affiliate networks (CJ, Linkshare, Performics) allow you to track non-converting clicks by SID.

 

Reporting delays, I never know when what will be updated.

 

I would really enjoy if they had an option to automatically send you an email when you make a commission.

 

1) The once a month fluctuations in your commission total. It jumps way up then two hours later you login and the jump has disappeared.

2) Not enough "training" material. They need some real easy step-by-step tutorials and explanations. People can learn more from this forum that Commission Junctions help files.

3) Better tracking. We did LavaLife on Commission Junction and it did just OK. We then replaced our CJ LavaLife ads with Linkshare's LavaLife program and conversions went through the roof. It makes me wonder what was wrong with the CJ tracking and how many sales I lost.

 

Sure... I know you can track it, but my point is that CJ should show you this. I'm sure they are storing all this data, so why not just allow all affiliates to view it. What's the big deal... I believe if you're a larger affiliate they do give you this ability to see both converted and non-converted leads sales (I think I read this from Jeremy Palmer), but I'm not sure.

For the major affiliate networks, not to do this is just stupid. Especially, when many of the smaller networks do allow you to see both.

 

Exactly... It's 4:15pm and CJ hasn't updated any sales/leads for today. I only get yesterday's stats. Have I made any sales today... or not? Sure I made sales/leads... but right now I'm in the dark until they actually confirm totals.

The reporting delays, really do take a bit of a toll. You're kinda of always wondering... is everything working correctly. Is my site down? Did they pull the offer? Are my links bad etc.

The reporting delays totally suck...

 

I can't wait for eBay to move over to their own platform, it HAS TO be better than this.

I expect very close to real time reporting, no reason they wouldn't be able to offer it since it's all internal data.

 

Are you running performance or transaction reports? I see all my usual sales/leads posted in my transaction reports for today.

 

1) reporting is insanely slow

2) their website is down half of the time

3) integrity of reporting results...sometimes I wonder if you truly get full credit for what you've sold. I'm not too hot on the lock/review/close process since you can't dispute anything.

 

Hey Johu,

The reporting delays I'm referring to are with regards to the Transaction reports. I am still not seeing any stats for today. It's so random when they update stats, sometimes it's every few hours and other times, like today it's taken over half a day. Yesterday, my stats stopped showing at around noon, then they begin updating at midnight.

 

Oh yeah, I hate that I have to deposit with my local currency, I would rather have the actual USD amount come to my USD bank account instead.

 

I love CJ but it seems like they're so content being #1 ...

1. Real Time Tracking That Isn't Real Time
2. Site Crashing / Login Problems / Too Slow
3. Reversed Sales with No Dispute
4. Varying Payment Dates

Most of all - FLUCTUATING BALANCE TOTALS THAT DOUBLE OR DECREASE EACH MONTH as payments are calculated. Why can't Commission Junction get a handle on this, it's just pathetic. I've contacted them before and they just say it happens monthly. Why should commissions double and fluctuate wildly just b/c they're calculating balances. I love you CJ but that's pathetic.

 

Their reporting is really bad compared to other networks. Way too sloooooowwww. I swear they cheat me out of commissions. When I walk a client through clicking on a link and making an order, then cj doesn't even record the order, it makes me a little suspicious.

 

That's an issue with the advertiser, not CJ. CJ charges advertisers 30% of all commissions as fees, so they have a huge incentive to track properly.

 

I just thought of a #4 to add to my list:

4) When you get a link from a CJ email asking you to visit a particular page, it takes you to the login screen first (when clicking on the link), then when you login, it takes you to your home page, not to the page the link was directing you too. If you stay logged in and copy then paste the link they sent, it takes you back to a login page. UGH!

 

Well after reading that im never gunna try them out. I started with Clickbank and i am quite happy with it, although i think there are somer problems behind the scenes...

Its very well organised and easy to work with, the way it should be...

 

I just want to state that the point of my initial post, wasn't to scare anyone away from using CJ, but to try and get CJ to fix some fundamental issues that I think they have that is not beneficial to CJ or affiliates.

Personally, I'd like to continue using them even more! I just want them to act like the top affiliate company that they are supposed to be. As of right now, their website and reporting seems to be stuck in 1999. The least they could do for affiliates who are generating CJ their income is build a kick ass website. I know it's not the easiest thing to do, but it's the right thing to do and would only be good for their business in the long run.

 

These are actually good points that CJ should and Im sure has look at addressing in the past.