I don't know if you did anything bad or not. But they should give a detailed explanation as to why they close an account. I would call them first thing tomorrow.

Talk to CJ, see what they say. If you were sending quality leads or sales to the merchants you work with, talk to them. It seems like ultimately this would have to come from the merchants saying this particular account was sending bogus leads or sales.

This is a little disturbing becuase it would seem pretty easy for someone else to hit links of another affiliate and get them kicked out. If you have detailed data, seems like you should be able to work it out with them.

At any rate, that email accuses me of "Non bona fide transactions include false, self inflated, and/or duplicate leads or transactions". This is certainly not true and i can't wait to have it straightened out.

I don't have enough information about what moved them to this decision. But what you said got me thinking... Recently (a few days ago) i dumped one of my main advertisers and replaced them with a competitor (Both are CJ advertisers). The reason was that the original advertiser lowered their commissions for 3 months in a row, was generally unresponsive, and would promise performance incentives but would not deliver. I did notify the advertisers that due to these reasons i was removing their ads out of rotation. Could it be that they falsely accused me in revenge for dropping them (and also so they don't have to pay me for the previous month)!?

If that indeed is the case and if apparently CJ just took their word for it, this set a really bad precedent.

Well, we'll see how it goes... If anybody else had similar experience please let me know.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 2:41 am (utc) on July 11, 2006]

>I don't have enough information about what moved them to this decision. But what you said got me thinking... Recently (a few days ago) i dumped one of my main advertisers and replaced them with a competitor (Both are CJ advertisers). The reason was that the original advertiser lowered their commissions for 3 months in a row, was generally unresponsive, and would promise performance incentives but would not deliver. I did notify the advertisers that due to these reasons i was removing their ads out of rotation. Could it be that they falsely accused me in revenge for dropping them (and also so they don't have to pay me for the previous month)!?

that's possible.. I've seen merchant behave that way... some of them will do anything to get back to you... if you dump them...

[edited by: tsinoy at 5:33 am (utc) on July 10, 2006]

I've had CJ dump my account for no reason at all (probably I did not generate enough sales for them). I would just sign up with another email address for a new account. It became annoying to have to change all my old links, however. (I keep my business relations with CJ to a minimum nowadays.)

I have had better experiences with Linkshare and Shareasale. Occasionally a merchant would drop me on Linkshare for not making enough sales, but the network itself has never dropped me. I've not had any bad experiences with Shareasale so far.

What's your niche, Nemo?

I've always been skeptical of CJ. Began with the fact that just about every product I've ever promoted through any network has brought me considerable earnings - except with CJ. I could have page promoting 4 non-CJ products and one similar CJ product and the 4 will pull commissions while CJ will not. Then I was dumped by them with no notice so I continued to promote their products until I tried to login one day and saw I no longer had an account. Finally their site has the worst interface in my opinion. Even the most basic control features are buried. I haven't used CJ in some time and haven't missed them for a second.

CJ also canceled my account without any obvious reason and without any warning. Allright, I wasn't the best performing affiliate - my balance has been standing at 2 dollars for 6 months - but, still, this is not the way a serious company behaves. And BTW where are my 2 dollars?

I learn that if you do not log into your CJ account at least once every 30 days, they will delete your account without notice. This happened to me a few months ago. I just signed up again and redid my links.

I have been with commission junction for about 6 years and only have made one commission for 3 bucks in that time and they keep terminating my account for no sales and my site gets about 3000 visitors a month and has very good ranking in the search engines. I just sign up again and change all my banners and links. Was getting about 200 dollars in commissions from linkshare every month for a few months then that dropped to 0. Beginning to wonder about these companies.

cdejongh

I think part of the problem is the proliferation of users with spyware, adware etc. I really think that a lot of the links that should make money for a publisher get taken over by spyware on the user's computer.

On the other end of the spectrum, users who are running ad blockers are blocking the ads so they don't even see them.

I have made very little from amazon or linkshare. I dropped CJ a while back.

I think that probably the only way people can make money with affiliates is if they are running a script that cloaks are redirects the links so that the adware doesn't get the chance to cookie stuff or swap affiliate IDs or overlay ads.

cg

What is the best cloker program to use?

When I create my links in Commission Junction I check the selection to hide tracking code in links, does this help?
Same thing with Amazon but I have never made anything with them either.

Really sorry to hear about your bad experience, Nemo. Hopefully you can at least recoup your 5K.

I've promoted sites with CJ in the past and have had absolutely no sales with them (but have done fairly well working directly with other merchants). When CJ cancelled my account, it was only *very* reluctantly that I rejoined and *only* in order to promote one specific merchant.

Shame on me! Still back to the same old situation. You're better off without 'em.

[edited by: CatLady at 3:55 am (utc) on July 15, 2006]

I've also promoted various companies on CJ for over 2 years. The banners never made squat, but I had some merchants where I added the info my self (with CJ and the merchants permissions) and I got paid for 95% of those.

There have been some shady merchants that wouldn't pay so I just dropped them. But the clear disparity between the leads that I entered myself and the regular banner ads was so overwhelming that I've never trusted CJ. Whether they are crooks or just inept the bottom line to me is that they are stealing/losing me money.

Their interface is so bad and their customer service is clueless that I stopped using them for a while. I've just added some new campaigns with CJ merchants so I'm anxious to see if the same pattern continues.

I did recently sign up with linkshare and I can't say that they're much better. Their ad rotation scripts don't work on IE (click it and it says the merchant offer is bad) but it does work on firefox. I've had problems with the three merchant's ads that I've tried.

And just like CJ their customer service is slow and clueless. I give them evidence and screenshots that their links are not working and they send me the verbatim tutorial from the website about how to set up a link. DUH! read the email I sent, I just told you I set them up and that they are broken!

I've not tried shareasale yet so I don't know if they're any better.

Why is is so difficult for an aff network to be run well? It seems like if one ever started they'd do well.

I used to use CJ quite a bit but noticed, once I became aware of the term, of the low conversations.

On one or two occassions I know that friends have opened account via a link of mine and I have not received payment.

Certainly something odd about CJ.

Let me add a few comments and give you an update. I hear people say that CJ interface is poor. My experience (which admittedly spans only a past few months) is that CJ current interface is far superior than LinkShare or BeFast or any in-house affiliate software that i've worked with. CJ traffic and transaction reporting is really tops and they do have a good selection of quality advertisers.

The conversion rates i was getting were fairly good, much better for me than AdSense. My advice is to find the right advertiser(s) for your particular audience. In other words, know what your site visitors are looking for. This may take some experimenting.

I do agree that CJ customer service is nothing to brag about. They only have an online support ticket system and sometimes i'd get an answer in a day, sometimes it took many days.

If it wasn't for the latest experience i would wholeheartedly recommend CJ. However, given that i'm potentially being screwed big time, the jury is still out. I've written asking for clarification regarding the forced account closure, gave supporting evidence, gave my phone number if they wanted to call back. That was 4 days ago and am still waiting for any kind of response or acknowledgement. Needless to say, at the moment i'm not feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about their publisher support.

The trouble with affiliate platforms such as CJ is that they seem to put disproportionally more energy in grooming their Advertisers than their Publishers.

What is the best cloker program to use?

There is no point cloaking, used to think it helps, but it doesn't. Spyware target cookies at point of purchase and all those afsrc=1 are bull#*$!. You expect thiefware authors to be ethical?

On the merchant's site, on the final portion of checkout, the spyware initiates a popup that overwrites your cookie with theirs.

Your course of action if your current merchant doesn't coverts well, drop them. Big names doesn't mean they convert well because those are the favorites for spywares to target.