How to Use CJ Affiliate as an Advertiser: Setup, Fees and First 90 Days

CJ (formerly Commission Junction) is one of the longest-running affiliate networks, and plenty of brands sign a CJ contract without a clear picture of what happens between signing and the first month of publisher sales. This guide covers how to use CJ Affiliate as an advertiser: who it suits, what CJ says publicly about fees, how onboarding and tracking work, program terms, publisher approvals, the Placements Marketplace, reporting, and the 90-day plan we recommend for a new program.

Each step follows CJ's own pages and developer docs, linked. Still choosing a network? Start with our guide on how to choose an affiliate network.

Who CJ suits

CJ positions itself for established brands at scale. Its advertiser page says twice as many IR500 brands work with CJ as with its nearest competitor (that is CJ's own claim), and talks about reaching consumers in over 240 countries and territories, with more than 150 payment currencies available to publishers. Its tracking standards mention advertisers across retail, travel and finance,.

CJ is also clear about what it expects from you. Its support FAQ says advertisers need to be able to build and maintain an ecommerce store and checkout, and implement and maintain the tracking integration. And its advertiser onboarding FAQ sets two minimum requirements: own and operate an active website, and understand that you will pay commissions on products sold or leads generated.

In our experience CJ fits best when you have an existing affiliate channel or a recognised brand that publishers already search for, a developer who can own the integration, and a budget that can carry a monthly network contract plus commissions. We have run CJ side by side with other networks: in our four-network case study we managed one program across CJ, Impact, Awin and Rakuten and grew affiliate revenue 120% year over year.

CJ advertiser fees: what is public

CJ does not publish advertiser pricing. Its support FAQ answers "How much does it cost to join CJ?" by offering advertisers a free consultation based on their business needs, and the onboarding FAQ says the first step is the Advertiser Application form, after which a member of the Business Development team gets in touch. Any fee figure on a third-party site is an estimate, not CJ's number.

One historic figure is worth knowing. CJ's own advertiser growth checklist, published in January 2021, says most programs require a minimum account balance of $500 at all times. That is a 2021 figure, not a current price, so ask CJ to confirm what applies to your program before you budget around it.

The questions we ask CJ's sales team on behalf of a brand:

• Is there a one-time setup or integration fee, and what does it include?
• How is the network fee calculated: a percentage of publisher commissions, a percentage of sales, a flat monthly amount, or a mix?
• Is there a monthly minimum, and what minimum account balance do we have to keep?
• How long is the contract term, and what happens at renewal?
• Which service level are we buying? CJ's onboarding FAQ says support options (email, phone, live chat or a dedicated account team) depend on the service level you choose.

For comparison, two competitors do publish prices. impact.com's pricing page lists Starter at the greater of $30 or 2.5% of monthly revenue, Essentials at $500/mo (which includes up to $2,500/mo in partner payouts), Pro at $2,500/mo and Enterprise at $10,000/mo. Awin's US advertiser pricing lists Access at $49/mo plus 3.5% per transaction and Accelerate from $99/mo plus 2.5%. We break the impact.com model down in impact.com pricing for brands.

Onboarding and integration

Apply and scope the account

CJ's onboarding FAQ asks you to know your target audience, marketing goals, budget and offerings before the first call. Moving from another network? Say so on the application: CJ supports migrations and plans the approach with you once integration starts.

Work the account setup checklist

Once your account is created, CJ shows an account setup checklist when you log in. It covers the technical integration plus the creative and content assets required to go live. Your Client Activation Manager acts as project manager through launch, and your Client Integration Engineer owns the technical integration and testing. CJ gives no fixed timeline; it depends on your requirements and integration complexity.

Meet CJ's tracking standards

CJ's developer portal sets out its tracking standards as six components:

If you run Shopify or Magento, use the plugin: CJ's onboarding FAQ says its plugins for both expedite integration and onboarding by an average of 50%. Whatever route you take, we recommend placing real test orders through a test publisher link, then cancelling one, before a single publisher is invited.

Program terms and commission setup

CJ calls program terms "your number one tool" for steering a program, in its advertiser account clean-up guide. Its advice, which we agree with: never leave Promotional Methods empty, list every publisher model you do not allow, state your social media link policy, and leave nothing open to interpretation. Different publishers can sit on different terms.

On commission design, CJ's Situational Commissioning is a rule-based option. The advertiser page says it lets you reward publishers on combinations of order attributes such as customer status, promotion type and customer location, and customise commissions per partner and per promotional property. Our usual starting point is simpler: one clear default rate, then a higher rate for new customers or high-margin categories once tracking passes those attributes reliably. Our guide to affiliate commission structure covers how to set the numbers.

Then choose your locking cycle, because it decides when publishers get paid and how long you have to reverse returns. CJ's payment cycle explainer describes three options:

• Standard: transactions from one month lock on the 10th of the next. You can extend a commission once, by one extra pay period.
• Custom: you set the lock date between 7 and 60 days after the event date.
• Open-ended: no set date; transactions stay "New" until you lock them, which CJ notes suits cases like travel bookings that must be redeemed first.

Once transactions lock you can no longer edit them, and CJ says a commission only closes for payout once the advertiser has enough funds to cover it. Match the cycle to your real return window and keep the balance topped up.

Recruiting and approving publishers

CJ's checklist puts reviewing and approving publisher applications on the daily list and recruiting through the Recruit Partners tool on the weekly list. The Recruit Partners tab in the CJ Account Manager searches publishers by keyword against their promotional properties and network profile, and the advertiser page lists filters such as promotional model, global footprint, social reach and category performance.

To keep applications moving, CJ lets you set automatic accept and decline rules on four criteria: country, publisher category, network rank and US state. Fill in your network profile keywords (up to 400 characters, per CJ's guide) so publishers who search for your category find you, register your site so publishers can deep link, and keep your New Publisher Email current: CJ's guide tells the story of a restricted promo code that leaked because it sat in an old welcome email.

For the detail, see our guide to recruiting publishers in CJ Affiliate. For channel-wide tactics, see our affiliate recruitment playbook.

Placements Marketplace

CJ's Placements Marketplace is where publishers post their rate cards and media kits and advertisers find paid placement opportunities. CJ describes a placement as any paid option for more exposure on a publisher's site, app, newsletter or social media, usually paid as a commission increase, a product exchange or a flat fee. Its checklist suggests reviewing the marketplace quarterly, especially before peak seasons. Each deal is recorded as an insertion order, the contract covering creative, pricing and payment.

We recommend buying placements only from publishers who already drive sales on commission, and comparing the placement period with that publisher's previous weeks.

Reporting

CJ's Insights dashboards offer a customisable period-over-period view for weekly and monthly trend reporting, and the advertiser page says Insights covers new, lapsed and returning customers, customer journey touchpoints and competitor benchmarking, with the same data available through CJ's APIs. CJ's checklist adds a daily look at the previous day's transactions, and treats a day with none as a possible tracking problem.

Two operational reports matter as much as performance: audit transactions and process corrections before they lock, and answer order inquiries, which loyalty and cashback publishers raise when a customer's reward did not track. The KPIs we put on a CJ dashboard are in our guide to affiliate program KPIs.

Your first 90 days on CJ (our recommended plan)

This is our plan, not a CJ requirement.

Our affiliate program launch checklist covers the assets to have ready before day one.

Mistakes we see on CJ

• Skipping the backup tracking. CJ marks concurrent tracking as always required, because ad blockers, browser limits and outages still cost conversions with the tag in place.
• Empty or vague terms. If coupon, trademark bidding or social rules are not written down, you cannot enforce them later.
• A locking cycle shorter than your return window. Once a transaction locks, you cannot correct it.
• Letting the balance run low. Commissions only close for payout when the account can cover them.
• Waiting for applications. The publishers you most want rarely apply on their own. Recruit weekly.
• Ignoring order inquiries. CJ's guide warns that unanswered inquiries mean the customer misses their cashback, which reflects on your brand.

Want help running CJ?

We set up and run affiliate programs on CJ and the other major networks: integration checks, terms, recruitment, placements and monthly reporting. See our affiliate program management service, or get in touch and tell us where your program is today.

Frequently asked questions