CJ Affiliate explained: how the network works and pays

CJ Affiliate, which many people still call Commission Junction, is one of the long-running classic affiliate networks. Companies, which CJ calls advertisers, run their programs on it. Affiliates, which CJ calls publishers, join once, apply to the advertisers they want to promote, and get one account and one payment for all of them.

That much is true of every network. What is worth knowing about CJ is how a sale turns into money, and one word in particular: locking. Most confused questions about CJ payments come back to it.

If networks are new to you, what an affiliate network is covers the general model first.

How CJ works for publishers

The path from sign-up to first payment has five steps.

1. You create a publisher account. You describe your site, channel or app and how you promote. CJ reviews the account before you can work with advertisers.
2. You apply to advertisers. A CJ account does not let you promote every program on the network. Each advertiser reviews your application and accepts or declines it, and some only take publishers with a track record in their niche.
3. You take your links. Once accepted, you pick from the advertiser's links and creatives, or build a deep link to any page on their site.
4. CJ tracks the sale. A customer clicks your link and buys, and the commission shows up in your reports.
5. CJ pays you. After the commission locks and your balance clears the minimum, it goes out in the next payment run.

The middle of that list is ordinary. Steps four and five are where CJ has its own vocabulary, so they get their own sections.

How CJ tracks a sale

A CJ link carries IDs for you and for the specific ad or link you used. When someone clicks it, CJ records the click and passes the visitor on to the advertiser's site. If that visitor buys within the advertiser's cookie window, the advertiser reports the sale to CJ, which matches it back to your click.

CJ calls a tracked sale or lead an action, and an advertiser can pay for more than one kind: a sale, a sign-up, a free trial that converts. Each action type can carry its own commission, so read the program's terms for the one you will actually drive.

Two details catch people out.

• The cookie window is the advertiser's choice. CJ runs the tracking, but each advertiser sets its own window, so two programs on CJ can differ a lot here.
• The last click usually wins. If the customer clicked another publisher's link after yours, most advertisers credit that one. Any exception is written in the program's terms.

What does locking mean on CJ?

Each advertiser on CJ sets a locking period. Until a commission's lock date passes, the advertiser can still correct or reverse it, for example after a return. Once it locks, the amount is final and the commission becomes eligible for CJ's next payment run.

This is the part of CJ worth understanding properly. A commission you can see in your reports is not yet money you are owed. It is a sale the advertiser still has time to check, and the lock date tells you when that time runs out.

So the useful question about a CJ program is not only "what does it pay?" but also "how long until it locks?" A short locking period means you see your money sooner. A long one usually means the advertiser has a long return window or checks orders by hand, which is reasonable, but it stretches the gap between a sale and a payment.

If a commission is reversed before it locks, the usual reasons are a return, a cancelled order, a duplicate, or traffic the program does not allow, such as bidding on the brand name in search ads.

How CJ pays publishers

Once a commission locks, it joins your balance. CJ pays out on its own schedule, and only when your balance has cleared the minimum payout for the payment method you chose.

The schedule, the minimums and the payment methods are CJ's rules, not the advertiser's, and they apply across every program you run there. They change from time to time and can depend on your country and currency, so check the current figures in CJ's own help pages rather than an old forum thread. Our guide to payout terms explains pending periods and thresholds in general.

Put the two clocks together and you get the real wait for a CJ commission: the advertiser's locking period, then the time until CJ's next payment run. Comparing two programs on CJ by their commission alone misses half of that.

Who pays for CJ

The advertisers do. A company on CJ typically pays to join the network and a cut on top of the commissions it pays publishers, with the pricing agreed with CJ rather than published as one list.

That matters to you indirectly. A company paying network fees has less margin left for commission, which is one reason the same company can offer different terms on another network or in-house. Our side-by-side guide to affiliate networks vs in-house programs covers what to compare when a company runs both.

Whose terms apply on CJ

Two sets of rules stack up, and it helps to keep them apart.

• The advertiser's terms set the commission for each action, the commission type, the cookie window, the locking period, which traffic sources are allowed and which sales are excluded.
• CJ's terms set the account rules, the payment schedule, the minimum payout and how disputes are handled.

So "how much do I earn on this sale, and when is it final?" is a question for the program's terms. "When does it reach my bank?" is a question for CJ.

How CJ compares with Awin

The two work along the same lines: a publisher account, applications per advertiser, network tracking and one payment for all your programs. The differences you notice day to day are vocabulary and the payment path. Awin talks about pending, approved and paid commissions, while CJ talks about actions and lock dates. Our guide to how Awin works walks through the other one step by step.

Neither is better in general. The network that suits you is the one your target companies run on, with the best terms for them, so look the program up before you pick a network to join.

How can you tell if a program is on CJ?

Follow the sign-up link on the company's affiliate or partner page. If it sends you to CJ to join or log in, the program runs there. A tracking link on one of CJ's click domains, carrying a publisher ID and an ad ID, is the other giveaway.

Plenty of companies run on more than one network, or on CJ and in-house at the same time, often with different terms on each. Finding a program on CJ does not mean it is the only version, or the best one for you.

When CJ suits you

CJ tends to suit you when:

• the brands you want to promote run their programs there;
• you promote several of them and want one login, one set of reports and one payment;
• you want a third party involved when a commission is reversed without a clear reason.

It suits you less when the company you care about runs its program only in-house, or offers clearly better terms elsewhere, which is worth checking before you apply.

Before you apply

Open the program's terms on CJ and note the commission for each action, the cookie window, the locking period and the traffic rules. Then compare them with any other version of the same program. Every program listing in this directory shows each network a company runs on, with the terms we read for each and a link to the source, and the network pages group the companies by network. Our data is not complete and terms change, so check the program's own page on CJ before you sign up. That page is the one that counts.