When starting affiliate marketing choosing a good Network is important. Commission Junction is one of the most trusted Network by merchants and affiliates alike. In CJ, affiliates have access to a huge directory of products, and when promoting several merchants, the earned commission from each of them is added and paid together.
The network is trusted by affiliates as commissions are paid by the merchants to the network and then paid back to the affiliates.
Unfortunately, Commission Junction penalizes small affiliates who produce impressions and clicks but no sales. One of my friend affiliate recently saw her hard earned commissions, that were paid by the merchants to the Network and credited to her CJ account, vanish. After writing to them, this is what she received:
“Thank you for your inquiry. The $10 fee you see in your account is a dormancy fee, due to not having generated any commissions in six consecutive months. After six months without having made a sale, your account will be deducted $10 per month until the balance is $0– then the account will be deactivated. All this is stated in the Publisher Service Agreement, “PSA”, which you agreed to upon signing up for an account with Commission Junction.
Once an account is deactivated the relationships you had with advertisers prior to deactivation have been terminated and your links are no longer valid until you restore your advertiser relationships. You will need to reapply to advertisers and, in some cases, create new links.”
This dormancy $10/month fee is really unfair for small affiliates who may not have been making sales but still advertise the merchants as impressions and clicks are still recorded. The bottom line of this is that CJ is great for experienced affiliates who know they will constantly make sales but it is advised for newer affiliates to start working with networks that won’t penalize them with fees.
