cj.com

[uncle]

I'm tired of advertisers reversing leads and sales. Commission Junction is supposed to be the trusted third party, tracking all the sales and leads. It's easy to make some nice money with them sometimes, if you get appropriate domains, but their tracking is practically useless because all the transactions they track can be reversed at the sole discretion of the advertiser.

I contacted cj about this. Here is their reply:

"There are many legitimate reasons that a lead can be deleted, and it must be done by
the advertiser - there is no other efficient way to organize the system. This is why
we publish the "Chargeback ratio" and more importantly the "EPC" so that you can see
how well the advertiser is paying their publishers. The competition internal to the
network keeps them honest. Compare the advertiser you have problems with to the other
advertisers in the same category and make a decision whether to promote a different
advertiser."

Sounds logical, but it doesn't change the fact that "trusted third party tracking" is simply BULLSHIT

 

They are also seemingly infamous for cutting accounts due to 'inflating traffic counters'...which, in perspective, if you have a high-traffic site with a few good offers, won't advertiser's traffic counts go up? This one made no sense..

 

[uncle]

well, poor traffic decreases advertisers' EPC, so they may not like it, but what bothers me is that advertisers can e.g. reverse 50% of legitimate leads, which I'm sure they do.

this way you're losing money and can't do anything about it

 

And CJ, being huge in the pay-performace world, can get away with it, pocket that 50%, then throw us our 'cheese' every month. I got fed up with them and defected to Linkshare, which is a ton better...They PIONEERED performance-based advertising.

 

[uncle]

linkshare has far less advertisers though

 

Yes, but the quality is there.

INSWEB--up to $25/lead
Walmart.com
REI.com
Western Union

And a little quality goes along way if you are a selective, strategic marketer.

 

[uncle]

that's true. I also use linkshare but I'd like to see more advertisers there. this way, it would be easier to find what you're looking for

 

I stopped using CJ.com a long while back when I realised that.