Affiliate Programs CJ.com - Commission Junction - not paying?

[JuniperPark]

I signed up with Commission Junction and put up an ad for eHarmony on my parking sites. They pay for every person that clicks through completes the questionnaire, and again if they sign up. A week and about 900 click-throughs later I got suspicious, so I click my own ad, answer the questionnaire, AND sign up, paying $49 right away.

That was 4 days ago, and still ZERO in the the commissions report. The ad now has 4,735 impressions, 1,160 clicks, and ZERO income. No response to email sent about this 24 hours ago.

Anyone else dealt with these people? It's starting to look like a scam to me...

 

[cwsteam.com]

I signed up with Commission Junction and put up an ad for eHarmony on my parking sites. They pay for every person that clicks through completes the questionnaire, and again if they sign up. A week and about 900 click-throughs later I got suspicious, so I click my own ad, answer the questionnaire, AND sign up, paying $49 right away.

That was 4 days ago, and still ZERO in the the commissions report. The ad now has 4,735 impressions, 1,160 clicks, and ZERO income. No response to email sent about this 24 hours ago.

Anyone else dealt with these people? It's starting to look like a scam to me...

In many cases, sales are manually approved. So probably their APM is too busy

 

[carlomrx]

i've noticed that some ads on CJ don't always pay or get registered, you should also make sure that the link code is correct and that there aren't any errors in it.

 

[JuniperPark]

Thanks for the messages. I have verified the code is correct, and as of now, STILL $0 commision for the YEAR. This is starting to look like plain old fraud.

 

[GT Web]

I have also had the same problems with CJ...

 

[MediaHound]

cj is actually one of the few programs that actually do pay!
In their defense, it is probabally an error in the website/merchant that you are promoting, and not a CJ error.
Though, they are prone to parasites, maybe you have spyware or an unethical ISP that's hijacking your links. Try their new obfuscated link system, try new URLs besides the all to familiar qkserv.com (or whatever it is) link that I bet your using. There is a huge discussion about this that you can search up in google about cj and parasites.

Just a thought, seems like a case of that to me.

We do a large amount of transactions with CJ, (ebay, for one), and they have their downside, but all in all, for some traffic, it's the best solution we've found.

 

[JuniperPark]

Thanks for the info, everyone.

I just got an automated response saying they 'try to respond to support requests within 24 hours' but they 'haven't forgotten' me. I filed the request 2 days ago. We'll see how it goes...

 

[JuniperPark]

UPDATE:

75 hours after asking CJ.COM to look it this (they promise to respond to support request with 72 hours), I basically got a nonsense response that I need to check :my cookie settings" and "that of my costomers".

EXCUSE ME, rest of the world: Please check your cookie settings.

This is total BS, my cookie settings are fine, as I responded, and I have been developing software applications for the internet for almost 10 years.

The response to that, a couple of hours later, was that I "should try other advertisers". I replied that I will NOT try advertisers since they have been caught red-handed ripping me off once, and I have sent eHarmony over 2,000 customers (by their own reports), so I'm out a lot of money at this point.

Awaiting response. At this point I would have to say BEWARE of Commission Junction.

 

[MediaHound]

who is your ISP?

Also, do you use Norton?

 

[JuniperPark]

who is your ISP?

Also, do you use Norton?

I don't use Norton (or any other virus stuff), no cookie removers, ISP is Time Warner, and we operate our own web servers.

 

[MediaHound]

Here's some more reading you can do, but there are a thousand threads about this topic online, http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum20/1590.htm

If that link does not work for you,
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cj+affiliate+parasites&btnG=Search
click the above link and then click should be the third listing down, ends with 1590.htm at wmw

 

[JuniperPark]

Mediahound:

Thank you again for the links... very interesting stuff! It looks like CJ avoids parasites by rotating to weird domain names to track clicks, then redirect the user to the customer. That all seems to be working fine in my case, and my machines pass all spyware and parasite tests.

That brings us back to CJ... we'll see what they have to say.

 

[JackW]

Very odd. I'm actually experiencing good conversions with eHarmony with about 1 in 25 producing leads and 1 in 50 converting to sales so it is unlikely it is terrible conversions from eHarmony. Sounds like a definite technical glitch on CJ's end.

 

[JuniperPark]

Jack -

Thanks! I just got a response from CJ.com saying they "don't understand the issue" and gave me a number to call and discuss the situation with them.

According to THEIR reports, I've sent them 18,517 impressions resulting in 1,179 clicks, with $0 leads and $0 sales. Using your conversion numbers, that's about $20 in leads and $330 in sales.

According to MY traffic numbers I've sent them over 300,000 impressions, although most of that is search engine spiders, especially Google. I've had traffic served with that at to over 10,000 unique IP addresses.

I'll call them in the morning... thanks again for giving me some idea of what to expect.

BTW - is there a delay between reporting the sale and seeing the sale on the reports? That's the only other thing I can think of.

MediaHound: After reading the affilliate parasite stuff you pointed me to, it looks like a parasite would ALSO hijack the click-through data. I'm now 100% certain there is no parasite involved.

 

[JuniperPark]

Update --

As of right now, eHarmony is showing ZERO sales, so it's not a delay issue. CJ's own reports shows tens of thousands of impressions and thousands of click-throughs, so cookie tracking and parasites are not the issue. Last week, at the direction of CJ's staff, I asked for an explanation from eHarmony via the CJ system. No response whatsoever from eHarmony.

CJ has twice escalated the issue and is now taking this very seriously. I'm going to insist that either I be paid for ALL sales I sent them, or they are to removed from the CJ affilliate program and I file a fraud charge against eHarmony.

 

[MediaHound]

MediaHound: After reading the affilliate parasite stuff you pointed me to, it looks like a parasite would ALSO hijack the click-through data. I'm now 100% certain there is no parasite involved.

Noted.

Maybe your traffic isn't converting!
Don't know what other possibility we overlooked.

Good luck.
Keep us updated - I'll be lurking...

 

[pleasedelete]

I use CJ and eHarmony and make a little money...

On a personal site of mine, MatePal, I have a directory which contains a CJ link to eHarmony and I have money in my CJ account from that link. One time I signed up with eHarmony through the link and the payment appeared in the account almost instantly.

I have found CJ very reliable, just not too profitable! Ha ha...

 

[JuniperPark]

Update:

- Still no response from eHarmony
- Still no response from CJ. I was told they would get back to me yesterday.

MediaHound: Yes, I can accept that my traffic is less targeted and not converting, but I do know for sure that at least one person converted (me!)

Cute site, GeneralBill!

 

[MediaHound]

Maybe they try to prevent people from joining their program just to make a buck off themselves.
On the affiliate programs I run, that's a big concern of mine.
Do realize that there are ways to prevent the webmaster himself from getting paid on his own purchases. Not sure how General Bill "got away" with it, though, if that's the case indeed.

 

[cwsteam.com]

strange. Usually CJ needs merchants to maintain a reserve to help not cause problems like these...!!