CommissionJunction is undoubtably the largest network of quality websites available to Affiliate Marketers. Companies like eBay, Citibank, and many more find a home in CJ.com’s giant database of merchants.

Design: 9

Slightly more advanced than ShareaSale.com, CJ gets an edge in the layout and ease of use. Their security features are excellent, and their overall functionality is just about flawless.

Reporting: 9

CommissionJunction’s reporting features are tough to get upset about. You can track your daily stats, exact product sales (In most cases- eBay is a special situation, where they do not show what auction actually resulted in the sale.) Finding EPC, Total Commission, and Product sales is a cinch.

Integrity: 6

I really think that this is where CJ falls behind ShareaSale and LinkShare- and it is the most important part of any affiliate management company. The real problem is the definate over population of search spammers. Obviously with the larger selection of merchants comes a larger following resulting in these types of situations- but they could combat this pretty easily.

Demanding content on all of the pages displaying ads would be easy. Using a simplified search algorythm you could easily decide what these pages are doing. If they are cloaking, or any other tactics deemed unfair by Google or other search engines, stop counting traffic from these pages. If they are cheating the search engines, they are cheating your affiliate program because it hurts your companies image in the online world.

Merchant Availability: 9

As mentioned in the introduction- I’m impressed with their selection. My Company, JDSign Interactive, currently markets for 82 CommissionJunction programs. All of these convert sales on a daily basis. There are literally thousands of programs to choose from, with anywhere between 2-5 being added every day. Keep ‘em coming!

Cost to Merchants: 6

Another problem with this service is their extreme cost. I realize they need to cover costs associated with such a robust system, but they are really over charging. The only thing worse than their integrity is their cost associated with being a merchant. Now, don’t get me wrong- you get access to thousands of Affiliate Marketers, but anybody worth a darn at Affiliate marketing will find your program in ShareaSale or Linkshare too.

Overall: 8

Here is your 8. CJ.com does a lot of things very well, but does a couple very important things very wrong. Be careful when picking programs in CJ- and check Google’s search results for spammers who may copy your page, wreck your SERPs, and crush your paycheck.