Joining Commission Junction

Signing up with Commission Junction is not a complicated process, but if you are new to the industry you might have a hard time determining exactly which program to join. The Commission Junction home page divides its clients into two categories: advertisers and publishers. You might think at first as I did that you should sign up as an advertiser. After all, you will be advertising these affiliate programs, won’t you?

As far as Commission Junction is concerned, though, the term advertiser applies solely to those companies that sign up with Commission Junction to launch affiliate advertising programs for their own web sites. The businesses and individuals who apply to Commission Junction in order to promote these affiliate programs on search engines or on their own web sites, yourself included, are publishers.

In any case, to become a publisher with Commission Junction, you need to fill out its application form. You can get to the form in one of two ways. The first way is to burrow into the site using the following three steps:

1. Go to the home page (www.cj.com) and click the “Publishers link” on the lower center of your screen.

2. When the Publishers page appears, click on “Learn more about CJ Marketplace”.

3. When the CJ Marketplace page appears, click on “Click here” in the paragraph on publishers and you will be taken to the application form page. The second option is to jump directly to the application page.

You can point your browser directly to the application page you want at https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do. The only advantage of not going directly to the sign-up page is that you can read some background on CJ Marketplace, which is the program you’ll be applying to join. In either case, whether you go directly to the application page or not, once you are there you will need to fill out the two-part application.

Step 1: Publisher Application. Step 1 of the application is a simple form requesting your language preference, country, and functional currency. When you are finished, click “Next.”

Step 2: Verifications. After you click “Next,” you will be taken to the second page, “Publisher Application: Step 2 of 2.” This is somewhat lengthy, but you’ll have it filled out in no time.

The top of page 2 consists of three check boxes to verify you have read and accepted Commission Junction’s Publisher Service Agreement (PSA) and privacy policy and that you are at least 18 years of age. First and foremost, be sure to read and accept the PSA.You will need to read the PSAall the way to the bottom, where the Accept button appears, and click on it. Then you will need to read and accept the Privacy Policy, making sure to check the box indicating you have done so when you are finished.

Finally, you will need to verify that you are at least 18 years of age (assuming you are) by checking the appropriate box. Site Information. Below the verifications comes the next section of the form, the Site Information section. If you do in fact have a web site, you may list it here. If you do not have a web site and intend to use search marketing to directly promote the affiliate programs you join, then this form is not really designed to accept your application, as the web site name and URL fields are required, but you can try a method I have successfully used to join some affiliate networks in the past.

Try entering “Search Engine Marketer” in the name field and the URL of a search engine in the required URL field, and then make it clear in the web site description field that you do not own a web site of your own, but that you will be purchasing ad space on search engines and content networks. This method will allow you to submit the application for consideration even though you do not own a web site.

Some networks will approve you; others may choose not to. If an affiliate network that you really want to join turns you down just because you do not have a web site, you may want to consider starting one.

In the Category field, select Web Services > Search Engine. Then be sure to check Search Engine Marketing, along with any other promotional methods you might use, in the “Define your promotional methods” portion of the Site Information section. Simply answer no to the question about site incentives unless you have or are developing a site that will offer any kind of incentives.

Contact Information.

Simply enter your name and address. Company Information. Unless you have a separate business entity to enter, you may enter your personal information here, including using your own name for the Organization Name field. When you come to the Tax ID field, you may enter your social security number unless, once again, you have a separate business identity complete with its own federal tax identification number. Then be sure to select Individual/Sole Proprietor from the drop-down menu for Tax Classification.

Payment Information.

Finally, in the Payment Information section you will need to select your preferred payment type from the drop-down box. You may choose whatever form of payment you like, but be aware that only direct deposit is completely free of charge. Depending on which method of payment you choose, you will need to fill in the relevant details. You are now ready to submit your application.

When you are finished filling out the form, click on “Accept Terms.” The Publisher Application Submitted page appears. As the first paragraph of this page explains, Commission Junction will send an e-mail (to the address you provided) containing your account number, your user name (the same as the e-mail address you already supplied), and your password. When this e-mail arrives, you can log on to your CJ Account Manager™ and start looking for affiliate programs to join. Instead of waiting around for that e-mail to arrive, though, let’s continue on and join a few more affiliate networks.

NOTE: You may have noticed while you were on the Commission Junction home page that there was a link for something called the BFAST login. Bfast was originally a ValueClick company called Be Free, which was in operation before ValueClick acquired Commission Junction. Today, Commission Junction is definitely the big player, and I rarely use Bfast. I find its user interface less intuitive than Commission Junction’s, and the selection is much broader on Commission Junction as well.

There is one affiliate program at Bfast that I had good luck with early on in my career, though, and you may find it worth the effort of joining just to participate. Barnes & Noble is the affiliate program of which I speak, and I do recommend it to beginners, as it has reasonable commissions, a wide variety of products to market, and achievable performance tiers.