by Riyaj Shaik

Commission Junction, a web-based, "pay for performance" company has been around for about a year. They provide a 3rd party mechanism for "marrying" top merchant e-tailers with vast numbers of individual web sites (affiliates). These affiliates carry content that can promote their products. In exchange, the merchant pays the affiliate a commission.

While Affiliate Marketing isn't new, CJ's commitment to customer service and continual service enhancements make them stand out from their competitors. For affiliates, they offer over 900 merchants (like Tower Records and Fingerhut) to choose from, each with easy-to-grab links of various sizes and messages to place on your site.

A new feature is the "virtual store," where affiliates can select individual products from various merchants to create a customized store on their own site, earning commissions on all sales. This is a pretty cool way for affiliates to easily access a large number of products, and for merchants to put their products in front of even more potential customers.

Without a doubt, one of the best features is the "one check per month" policy for commission payments. Affiliates who earn over $25 in commissions from any of their merchants will be paid in one aggregate check every month.

Also, the affiliate (or Merchant) can track his sales online, real time, anytime from the CJ site.

There are other ways of making money besides the commissions on sales. You get $1 for a new affiliate and 5% off of their sales. With this 2-tier program you can make substantial money if you recruit a real hot site. Recruit a new merchant and get a $150 referral fee.

They also have a number of services targeted towards the Merchants. They offer one-on-one account managers to help Merchants make the most of their program, plus the whole thing is web based, meaning merchants do not have to buy and install software to run a good affiliate program. CJ will also take over and begin the management of existing programs for those merchants who are in over their heads when it comes to handling their growing affiliate programs.

Commission Junction has recently received a $40 million investment. This vote of financial confidence bodes very well for this company and all those who choose to join.

I became an affiliate recently, and I would recommend that you do so as well. Happy commissions!