I just signed up their yesterday because I want to promote some insurance products and both Geico and Esurince instantly declined my application.
How do you get accepted to a program on CJ.com?
- Thread starter onlinehustla
- Start date
I am sure there is a sort of threshold based on previous earnings, promotion types, etc. It doesn't hurt to e-mail the company though.
Some advertisers basically decide to shut down their affiliate programs (too many headaches with fraud, bad/no affiliate manager, crap like that) but keep it open for existing affiliates. Others are just lazy.
When I worked on some programs at CJ, the only thing that we banned were countries from outside of the US that had a great history of fraud with our programs. A lot of advertisers auto-decline based on earnings bars (New publishers usually, or 1-2 bars), country, or if you have an incentive description on your account.
Make sure you don't have things marked on your account profile that disqualify you from promoting their offers. CJ is still stuck in 1995 affiliate industry and continue to do things that way so you will have to work around it as it isn't like Azoogle, Market Leverage, COPEAC, or other CPA type networks.
Here are a handful of reasons that I deny publishers for our offer in CJ:
If their Site is:
A. A Banner Farm
B. Site has absolutely nothing to do with our vertical (once denied if it was an old site that was submitted, they can submit a relevant site for review)
C. Site owner and applicant do not remotely match
D. Site is a rip off of another site or is a template type with 1,000 clones of the same site
E. Other advertisers art work and banner are stretched, pixelated and slaughtered
F. Site is in a language other than English or is catering to users outside the US
-=Chipmunk=-
If their Site is:
A. A Banner Farm
B. Site has absolutely nothing to do with our vertical (once denied if it was an old site that was submitted, they can submit a relevant site for review)
C. Site owner and applicant do not remotely match
D. Site is a rip off of another site or is a template type with 1,000 clones of the same site
E. Other advertisers art work and banner are stretched, pixelated and slaughtered
F. Site is in a language other than English or is catering to users outside the US
-=Chipmunk=-
While that's great and all that you use criteria to decline potential publishers, I think it's really stupid to evaluate pubs based on their current websites. If I see a potential unique offer that I like in CJ, I sure as he'll ain't gonna spend hours building a lander or site when I could potentially get declined by the advertiser. There are alot of offers there where thin LPs are perfectly fine, but I ain't getting off my ass to promote it unless I have approval.
I do go the route of contacting the advertiser beforehand if I really really want to promote an offer where I was initially declined. But you end up turnin off alot of publishers when all the advertisers are trigger happy decliners.
Spliffic-
Within CJ, as an advertiser, you are provided very little info about potential publishers. We have to go by what we see and what our initial evaluation tells us. Our specific vertical of Payday requires very targeted traffic. If I excepted every website, I would have 1000's of inactive publishers with cooking & dish sites. If someone is really interested, they will take 2 minutes and shoot me an email or give me a call, as you do with programs that had initially declined you. For us, CJ is set-up for those publishers that prefer to stay within CJ for one reason or another, than go thru our program direct.
-=Chipmunk=-
Within CJ, as an advertiser, you are provided very little info about potential publishers. We have to go by what we see and what our initial evaluation tells us. Our specific vertical of Payday requires very targeted traffic. If I excepted every website, I would have 1000's of inactive publishers with cooking & dish sites. If someone is really interested, they will take 2 minutes and shoot me an email or give me a call, as you do with programs that had initially declined you. For us, CJ is set-up for those publishers that prefer to stay within CJ for one reason or another, than go thru our program direct.
-=Chipmunk=-
I have to say that that is exactly the reason why I'm not yet using CJ to a greater extend.
I think the current model is based on the idea that a publisher is a siteowner with already millions of page impressions, not an affiliate marketer. The affiliate will adapt to the offer and then create a landing page and get targeted traffic from PPC and Buys instantely. I think this is true for 90% of the top-affiliates, especially those here on WickedFire.
What do you want ? A siteowner or a real affiliate marketing partner?
Seen like this, the current system on CJ is flawed and not helping advertisers nor affiliates.
I think the current model is based on the idea that a publisher is a siteowner with already millions of page impressions, not an affiliate marketer. The affiliate will adapt to the offer and then create a landing page and get targeted traffic from PPC and Buys instantely. I think this is true for 90% of the top-affiliates, especially those here on WickedFire.
What do you want ? A siteowner or a real affiliate marketing partner?
Seen like this, the current system on CJ is flawed and not helping advertisers nor affiliates.
Geico doesn't give a fuck about their affiliate program - I still can't get in, and I'm a CJ Performer (designated in my profile), which advertisers usually kill to get in their programs. Then again, both of those affiliate programs don't even seem worth using with what else you could use in the auto insurance field. My guess is that if you have 0-2 earning bars, you probably won't get into Esurance or Geico. The volume of shitty or fraudulent affiliates applying to lead programs (especially insurance programs) on CJ is ridiculous.
you've gotta realize that at most companies the idiot AM's that manage CJ programs at merchant's ends (ie, at the advertiser) are making $40k/year, just learned about 'dreamweaver' last week, and generally don't understand how anything works online besides some abestweb poster's long tail SEO site with frames and 2px table borders reviewing 'all things carpet cleaning!' in Portland Oregon with some link to the youtube vid of the piano cat smack dab in the middle of their page.
Prior to the 'cj performer' program I was a 5 bar publisher doing.... large volume figures monthly w/ them. The responses I'd get back AFTER I mailed them specifically explaining what we did, how I wanted to run, how I could blow out their program (at the time all organic, so super duper premium traffic) were enough to make me want to slam my mont blanc through my fucking eye.
I think I sent one back about 15 goatse pics attached and got so pissed at the 'not interested' response due to lack of comprehension that I basically stopped building anything new w/ CJ and moved as much away as I could.
Prior to the 'cj performer' program I was a 5 bar publisher doing.... large volume figures monthly w/ them. The responses I'd get back AFTER I mailed them specifically explaining what we did, how I wanted to run, how I could blow out their program (at the time all organic, so super duper premium traffic) were enough to make me want to slam my mont blanc through my fucking eye.
I think I sent one back about 15 goatse pics attached and got so pissed at the 'not interested' response due to lack of comprehension that I basically stopped building anything new w/ CJ and moved as much away as I could.
I have never had a problem getting approved. I call the advertisers and have a nice chat and explain how I am planning to market their products or services.
Unless you are completely unique or can provide me with enough reason to remain "really interested", I'll just move onto the next network that has a similar (or sometimes identical) offer instead of jumping hoops to get approval. I know you probably get hundreds of new applications daily (which can be a filtering nightmare), but think about how many quality pubs you are turning away and how much potential revenue dollars you are throwing away based on settings that could be very much outdated.
Like Thumoney said, you guys appear to be approving based on the assumption that everyone is an established siteowner. But the thing is, most affiliates will not maintain their "money makers" within the user setting of any network (out of the dozens of networks I applied to, I NEVER mention my best moneymaking sites in the application for approval and I'm sure 90% of affiliates do the same). Also, approving based on the publisher's earnings bar is also a big mistake as this would be similar to a CPA network terminating/housekeeping their low-balance accounts because they assume that publisher will never perform. Little do they know that the same publisher is banking hard on another network.
Anyways that's my $.02 about CJ (not trying to single you out Chipmunk as this is more of a business model and network issue with the CJ platform itself). I'm also sure that if CJ didn't have their very own section on DP, I bet it would eliminate a big portion of the fraud or quality problems as well.
You don't need to put your landing pages in your profile. Simply add a nice "company" page saying that you're a high-performing super-affiliate (or whatever junk you want to say) and that details your promo methods on a high level (search marketing, seo, media buys, whatever - details aren't necessary).
Don't be afraid to follow up with the affiliate manager email address listed - or, if you're a 5-bar or CJP, you should have a dedicated publisher manager @ CJ that can help you out by making some calls to get approval.
Don't be afraid to follow up with the affiliate manager email address listed - or, if you're a 5-bar or CJP, you should have a dedicated publisher manager @ CJ that can help you out by making some calls to get approval.