There is no standard - it depends how on the ball the affiliate manager is for any given company.

You should never have to wait more than a couple business days IMHO, but I've experienced extended periods of time for approvals - in some cases months have passed.

I've had one at CJ take a year and a half, and another is waiting for about that long with no word back. I'll never promote either one. It's not a good sign of being "affiliate friendly" when they take more than a few business days, a week or two maximum, give or take a few days.

There can be times when a company is without an AM for a while, but in that case when someone comes on board if they don't send some kind of mail introducing themselves it isn't promising.

I have to admin I'm starting to feel nervous about Commission Junction. For a site that seems to have been around for years, its user interface really isn't great.

The advertiser and link search engine takes ages to complete a search for me, and then ages to go to pages two, three, etc.

Also, it's not possible to ask for advertisers that service a set of countries, only one country at a time. Which makes it difficult for a non-geographic site like mine.

The Javascript links don't work in Firefox, at least not for two separate advertisers that I tried. The HTML is workable, but requires some work to make it XHTML-compliant.

Plus, the pop-up windows for almost everything are driving me nuts.

On top of that, I keep finding old postings to this forum about merchants that don't pay up.

I'll stick with it for a while, but do you experienced users have any tips for a CJ newbie?

>>users have any tips for a CJ newbie?

Yep, diversify and use other networks also, choose merhants carefully and don't use CJ's Javascript links.

I recently noticed several merchants who hadn't responded to my affiliate applications through CJ after a YEAR.

Usually, though, approval or rejection comes in 1 to 2 business days, and sometimes within an hour or two. It all depends on the individual affiliate manager.

For those affiliate programs that don't have "automatic" approval of affiliates, your application will be approved depending on when that particular affiliate manager chooses to go in and approve the latest round of applications...could be minutes...or unforunately could be months.

One effective way to expedite the process is to email the affiliate manager directly- you can find their email on their company page in CJ.

Not only will you alert the affiliate manager to your waiting application, but by displaying a proactive role, you will most likely increase your chances of getting approved.