Commission Junction (CJ) Affiliate Network

CJ.com is one of the oldest and most trusted affiliate networks online. It can be expensive to join, for merchants, but the network is reliable and exceedingly popular with all manner of publishers. It has a wide range of niche categories, making it easy to spot the type of offer you're interested in promoting. They attract both very large and very small advertisers, making it ideal for tight niches.

They do pool the commissions into one check, paid directly to affiliates by CJ. That means even if individual merchants have a payout minimum upwards of $50, you won't have to wait to receive those funds due to not meeting their minimum. Instead, it will be paid by Cj.com to your account directly when you meet their $25.00 minimum payout. There is also a multi-tiered commission structure available. There is a referral bonus too. There is plenty of help for new advertisers and publishers, in the form of CJ University. This program is very attractive to advertisers, even if it can be expensive to join the network. Publishers join for free. For a beginning publisher who can prove they are an asset to the network, it's a great affiliate program to join.

It is a highly competitive site for publishers. Just as the massive exposure works well for advertisers, it can backfire on publishers who can't compete with a saturated market. Even though you can get approved by CJ.com, each merchant must subsequently approve you for their offerings too. While it's a bit more of a delay, they typically do agree to put you on board. It's important to really niche your offerings well in this network to make sure you haven't picked an offer that no longer produces the same return as when it first came out. On the other hand, if you can be one of the first on the band wagon of a very profitable ad, you stand to make a nice income.