Analyzing Commission Junction

By Matt DeAngelis

Commission Junction is one of the 800 pound gorillas of Affiliate Marketing. CJ is part of the publicly held ValueClick, which earned $39 million last year on marketing programs, including affiliate programs, email marketing and software for advertising agencies.

CJ handles affiliate programs for a lot of the big names, including Home Depot, Yahoo and Citibank.

Can you make money with Commission Junction? Like most affiliate programs it depend on the theme or niche of your web site, and how well you match your content and the CJ programs.

Our spider ran through the site recently, and I’ve made a list of the major categories and their average Earnings Per Click (EPC). You will recall that EPC is calculated by taking the total commission payout for the advertiser and dividing it by the number of clicks that advertiser gets, so EPC measures how profitable each click is for the publisher. We used 7 day EPC, which measures EPC across the last seven days.

The spider also only saves the top ten advertisers in each category/subcategory, and since some advertisers are in more than one category/subcategory it tends to skew the results a bit (higher). We came up with an average of .56 (fifty-six cents) per click across the board averaging every category and subcategory.

We’ve created a metric we call True EPC or TEPC, which measures the actual Earnings Per Single Click, rather than the earnings per hundred clicks that companies like CJ use to make the numbers look bigger.

Note: I only included the first 5 categories here, and only part of the data. All of the data can be found at www.affiliateblog.com.

Here’s a very interesting list by category:

Category True EPC / Top Ad & TEPC

Financial Services $ 2.41 / Get Smart $ 32.98
Insurance $ 1.25 / American Life $ 2.98
Home & Garden $ 1.16 / Sunsetter $ 8.21
Web Services $ 1.13 / Yahoo Hosting $ 3.75
Computer & Electronics $ 0.87
Accessories $ 0.80
Health & Beauty $ 0.76

What does it all mean? Well, to me it means that if you have a website that gets visitors interested in Loans, Insurance, Sunsetter awnings or Yahoo hosting, you should be a member of Commission Junction.

More generally, if you think you can get decent clickthrough on Finance, Home & Garden, Insurance or Web Services, I would include some Commission Junction ads.

Some commentary on the top 4 ads: what strikes me right off the bat is that the little Yahoo text ad at #4 pulls almost four bucks. I actually signed up for that program myself, and I’m going to put it on this site when I get the chance. My calculations tell me that 1:5 to 1:7 clicks results in a signup.

What’s the flip side of all this data? There are categories that aren’t so great at CJ. If your site is about web services advice, handbags, new age, car travel or rentals, commercial insurance or weddings, I’d look elsewhere. Another way to interpret the data would be to say that the marketers CJ has for those categories don’t pull well. Still another would be that the type of sites that sign with CJ just don’t attract the type of people that would click on ads in those categories. No matter how you slice it it still comes out the same — it seems like CJ isn’t the place to look to fill that ad space.

Not content with my mountain of data, I opened the firehose a little more. I ran a program that compared the average EPC for Pay-per-sale programs vs. Pay-Per-Lead programs. For per-sale, the EPC was .36. For per-lead it was .67. Intutitively I would say that advertisers pay more for sales than leads, so the clickthrough on leads has to be much higher on CJ, which also seems correct since less of a commitment is required from the visitor for a lead than a sale. So if you have a choice in programs between sale and lead, take the lead program.

So what did we learn here? It seems to me that if your site visitors would respond to banners or text links about mortgage financing, insurance, gardening or web services, add some CJ banners to the mix. What the heck, add them anyway if you have room, because experimentation is important to success in affiliate marketing. If you have a site with content that fits those categories or is a general interest or entertainment site, there are many good programs to choose from at CJ.

Lastly, I did a quick comparison of the average Adsense payout (using 80% of the average of keyword bids for different categories), and Adsense comes out a better EPC about a quarter of the time. So check Adsense first before you put up a CJ ad that has an EPC of a dollar or more. A big banner ad vs. an Adsense ad may seem like a good idea because more exposure may translate into more clicks, but you can fit three Adsense text ads in that banner space.

There are many hidden insights in the data, and I encourage you to go to the website, print out the page and take a look. There might be some terrific-paying programs you can ad to your website.

I’d like to put together a free weekly email service that provides stats like the ones on this page. If this is something you might be interested in, drop me a line.

Matt DeAngelis runs AffiliateBlog.com. Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind many of the most successful ad campaigns of the time.

Commission Junction: the Perfect Affiliate Resource for Niche Markets

By Fred Farah

There are many affiliate programs you can go to to find real solid product to market online. Most marketers who produce their own product provide these programs that are easily accessible, and can be worked simply by signing up to them. However, there are places you can go, sign up, and have virtually any product in the world at your disposal.

I'm talking about places like Commission Junction, a huge listing of companies who sell online and offer Affiliate programs. All the big name brands are there, so there's no limit to what you can market.

Most of you Internet Marketers are used to thinking in terms of digital products and the first name you probably think of is ClickBank. Well, we know that ClickBank deals only with downloadable products. Commission Junction, on the other hand has affiliate programs mostly for physical products.

If you are into setting up niche markets, you have learned that the online world is not just made up of downloadable ebooks. Most niche markets require affiliate products of physical goods that are shipped by the seller for you. It is in this area that Commission Junction excels.

The advantages of becoming a member of Commission Junction is that you just have to sign up once and that gets you access to every affiliate program they sponsor. This is great for people who niche market through mini-sites because with a few clicks of your mouse, you can quickly plug in product or update product information for all of your niche markets in one session.

If there was a downside to mention it would be that, unlike places like ClickBank, the commissions are somewhat lower. While ClickBank usually carries a 35% to 60% commission on product sold, Commission Junction tends to be in the 7% to 20% bracket.

So if you're hoping to strike it rich marketing one product, then products offered by Commission Junction may not be for you. However, if you're a serious Niche marketer, then you know that you many products to earn a respectable income. One or two products just won't cut it..

In fact, having a membership with Commission Junction, in spite of the relatively lower earning potential per product, is a better deal when you're working niches, because the key to good niche marketing is in finding product that is high in demand yet low in supply. With the number of companies marketing through Commission Junction along with the thousands of product to choose from, one could create mini-site niche markets all day long and still find new and rare product to market.

Thus having ten mini-sites of strong high demand every day products getting 10% commission has a higher long range residual profitability margin than having one site with a 50% commission for each product sold.

Another advantage to having all of your affiliate programs in one place is that your earnings are combined. What this means is that, no matter how many companies you're affiliated with on Commission Junction, each company submits your daily earnings to Commission Junction who, in turn, cuts your check and sends it off to you.

This means less work keeping track of your income, less waiting for accumulated commission checks totaling the usual $100 minimum, and less paperwork come tax time.

Now this may not seem like a big deal to someone who's happy selling one or two products, but if you consider that some niche marketers have well over 100 niche sites, keeping track of everything on a per product basis could get quite overwhelming.

So using a company like Commission Junction has its definite advantages for the niche marketer. Through them you can sell anything from soup to nuts, monitor all of your niche products in one place, and never worry about keeping track of the earnings each niche brings you.

Commission Junction takes care of all that for you. You can find out how much you've earned over all, what earnings you've received from individual affiliate programs, and be assured that your check will reach you in a timely manner.

They also supervise and take care of problems with their sponsored companies, so you never have to worry about a program you belong to going "belly up" while you're aggressively promoting their product.

Yes there are plenty of reasons to join Commission Junction if you're serious about niche marketing. Just take a look at all the companies they sponsor and ponder over all the worry free possible niches you could create through them.

The sky's the limit!

Fred Farah

copyright 2005

The Best Affiliate Products and Niche Market Strategies for Maximum Profits Best Affiliate Products Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Fred_Farah

Affiliate Programs – How to Use Commission Junction

By John V. W. Howe

The affiliate program is probably the best return for your effort with the least demand on your time. This has an appeal to the Boomer Entrepreneur since we want to run the business and not have it run us. We want to have time to “kick back and smell the roses”.

The attraction to this model is that it is virtually risk free except for your time. It costs you nothing to sign up as an affiliate. You recommend the product and send your visitors to the website where the product is sold and if the customer purchases the product, you are paid a commission. Amazon.com is credited with being the first businesses on the Net to fully develop the affiliate concept and now all the major companies have affiliate programs.

When you sign up as an affiliate, you will be given an affiliate number, and a special link to use for linking to the affiliate website. This link will send your visitor to the business site and at the same time tell the business that you sent the visitor so you will receive the commission in the case of a sale.

There are companies that do the accounting and act as the coordinator between affiliates and the companies they represent. These are called affiliate program providers (APP’s). One of the major sites for handling affiliate accounting is called Commission Junction. It handles eBay and others. The major site for electronic products is ClickBank. Other sites are BeFree, Linkshare, and Performics. A German APP is Affili.net.

Commission Junction is the largest APP and handles many great companies. To fully explore what is available, you need to sign up at CJ and look for affiliates there. You will be able to see who the companies are and the commission structure of each. You can then join the program right in CJ without having to go to each company and apply.

I suggest that you join CJ and study the many companies that are represented. Take note of a few that you feel might be ones that you would like to represent. Don’t join the affiliate program yet, but go to Google and research the company website. See if they sell themselves well and will support the sales effort that you are going to expend to sell their products or services. Also, from CJ, you can link to the landing page in the company website. Go there and check it out to see if it sells well.

Step by Step Start

The following will lead you through the sign up process as a Commission Junction publisher. This process is longer than most that you have previously completed. Be prepared to complete two pages of information. The second page is long and detailed.

First page: Select your language, country, and currency. Click NEXT.

Second page: After swearing to abide by the rules and regs, you will be asked for information about your newsletter or website (URL). If you have a website, you can enter it. If not, make up a name for the eZine that you may plan to publish. For this application, you must make up a newsletter name if you do not have a website (URL). Be creative!

You will then be asked about your promotional methods. Click the Website/Content and Search Engine Marketing buttons. Next click “NO” on the radio button that asks if you donate any proceeds to charity (unless you want to do so).

Next you will be asked to enter all the information needed for setting up your account. You might have to attempt this page a couple of times since you might not have all the info you might need the first time. A key item you will need is social security number or tax ID if you are registering as a business. If you want to have your payments direct deposited, get a blank check so you will have the info to set up the banking information.

When you finish giving CJ your entire pedigree, click “Accept Terms” and you are on your way. Check your Inbox for an email from CJ with your acceptance message and password.

Sign up for Commission Junction at https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do

Once you have received your acceptance email from Commission Junction, log in to www.cj.com and use your password to enter. When you are logged in, you will be on your Commission Junction Home Page. It shows your account status and basic accounting info. It also shows the new advertisers on CJ. You might see if any of these look appealing since you can jump right on them and get a head start.

Near the top of the page click on “Account”. This is where you can update the information that you entered on your application.

Now down to business. Click on the “Get Links” tab near the top and you will be presented the page where you can find advertisers. There are several ways to view it: By category, by advertiser name, by Smart Zone, and by relationship which will list all the accounts with which you have an established relationship.

As an example, to find a company with which you are familiar (eBay), select the Category view and in the left column under Commerce, click “Auctions”. The page that is presented will contain various auction sites, but you will recognize most of them as the various eBay sites for the USA and other countries.

To join an affiliate, click on the “View Links” in the box with the affiliate name. You will be presented with the various banner ads and links for the affiliate. Pick one and click on it. If you are not a member of the affiliate program, you will be presented a page describing the program and at the bottom of the page is a button “Join Program”. Click this and see the response. Sometimes you will be accepted immediately and sometimes you will get a message that you will be notified after your application has been reviewed. Go ahead and join eBay USA since you should be accepted immediately by it.

The sequence of “Get Links” and “Join Program” is how you sign up for the affiliate programs that you want to represent. It is all in Commission Junction and it makes it very easy for you to grow an affiliate program as your online job.

Note: Some affiliates require that you have a website when you sign up with them. You can build a website later and reapply if this affiliate program is one you want to pursue as an online job.

A word of caution: Becoming an affiliate does not automatically make you rich. Becoming an affiliate establishes the relationship to let you promote a product and get paid for successful promotion. It is up to you to do the work of driving traffic to the affiliate site. If you do your job well, a percentage of the traffic will purchase from the site and you will be paid a commission for those purchases.

This concludes your education about Commission Junction. It is a powerful website and is a “must join” if you are going to create an affiliate program.

Good luck with your future affiliate programs.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

John V. W. Howe is an entrepreneur, author, inventor, patent holder, husband, father, and grandfather. He has been involved in entrepreneurial activities for over 40 years. He founded http://www.boomer-ezine.com and http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com to help Boomers (baby boomers) become entrepreneurs when they retire.