How to Get Started With CJ Affiliate (Beginner’s Guide)

CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) is one of the largest and most well-established affiliate marketing platforms on the planet. Their network reaches more than one billion customers every month, driving over $16+ billion in annual revenue.

So if you’re interested in affiliate marketing, this is definitely the place to start.

Registering as an Advertiser vs. Publisher on CJ Affiliate

The first thing you need to do is register your CJ Affiliate account. You won’t have access to anything until you complete this step.

There are actually two different types of accounts on the platform—accounts for advertisers and accounts for publishers.

You’ll set up an advertiser account if you have a product or service that you want to promote through CJ Affiliate’s partner network.

Or you can set up a publisher account if you want to earn commissions from promoting the advertisers.

Verify Your Email Address

Registration takes just seconds to complete.

The initial phase only requires you to provide your email and create a password. Then CJ Affiliate will send you an email to confirm your account.

For the purposes of this guide, I’m registering a publisher account. But the advertiser steps will look very similar, just with some slight variations (because you’ll be paying instead of getting paid).

Accept the CJ Affiliate Terms of Agreement

Before you can officially complete your account, you need to agree to CJ Affiliate’s terms of service.

Here’s a quick preview of what that entails:

It’s mostly boilerplate stuff that I’m not going to dive into right now. But make sure you read everything, and ask your company’s attorney to review it for you as well if you have any questions. Failure to abide by these terms can cause the immediate termination of your account

Complete the Onboarding Checklist

Next, you’ll need to set up your account. You’ll be asked to provide the following pieces of information:

• Admin’s name, email, and phone number
• Description of your network, promotional methods, and business model
• Promotional property (such as your website, socials, or anywhere else you’ll be promoting partners)
• Your business details and tax info
• Payment details for direct deposit

Note: You must submit your tax information before CJ Affiliate will accept your direct deposit details.

Browse For Advertisers and Apply For Affiliate Programs

Now you can start earning commissions for promoting partners in the CJ Affiliate network.

From your admin account, click the Partners tab on the top of your screen, and then select Find Advertisers from the drop-down menu.

There are literally thousands of programs to choose from. So I recommend using the filter options on the left side of your screen to narrow the results.

Affiliate programs only work well if they’re niche-specific.

Don’t just apply to everything you see. Instead, focus on the ones that actually align with your audience. This will also increase the chances of being accepted into the program and increase your potential affiliate revenue.

For example, if I use the Business filter and then select Productivity Tools, the initial list of 3,192 programs gets filtered down to just 29. This is much more reasonable to work with.

If you see something that interests you, you can click the Apply to Program button (highlighted above).

You’ll also be able to view the advertiser’s ads, starting with which ones are performing the best. When you find one you’d like to include on your site, click on it, and the ad, along with the HTML, will be shown for you to copy into your site.

CJ affiliate also includes a number of reporting features that can help you optimize your campaigns. With affiliate marketing, testing and experimenting is the key to success. You can access updated report, and your statistics are broken down in several ways, including best performing links and sites, as well as best product performance. You can also track your earnings quickly and easily as well.