| Commission Junction is one of the 800 pound | | | | get the chance. My calculations tell me that |
| gorillas of Affiliate Marketing. CJ is part | | | | 1:5 to 1:7 clicks results in a signup.What's |
| of the publicly held ValueClick, which earned | | | | the flip side of all this data? There are |
| $39 million last year on marketing programs, | | | | categories that aren't so great at CJ. If |
| including affiliate programs, email marketing | | | | your site is about web services advice, |
| and software for advertising agencies.CJ | | | | handbags, new age, car travel or rentals, |
| handles affiliate programs for a lot of the | | | | commercial insurance or weddings, I'd look |
| big names, including Home Depot, Yahoo and | | | | elsewhere. Another way to interpret the data |
| Citibank.Can you make money with Commission | | | | would be to say that the marketers CJ has for |
| Junction? Like most affiliate programs it | | | | those categories don't pull well. Still |
| depend on the theme or niche of your web | | | | another would be that the type of sites that |
| site, and how well you match your content and | | | | sign with CJ just don't attract the type of |
| the CJ programs.Our spider ran through the | | | | people that would click on ads in those |
| site recently, and I've made a list of the | | | | categories. No matter how you slice it it |
| major categories and their average Earnings | | | | still comes out the same - it seems like CJ |
| Per Click (EPC). You will recall that EPC is | | | | isn't the place to look to fill that ad |
| calculated by taking the total commission | | | | space.Not content with my mountain of data, I |
| payout for the advertiser and dividing it by | | | | opened the firehose a little more. I ran a |
| the number of clicks that advertiser gets, so | | | | program that compared the average EPC for |
| EPC measures how profitable each click is for | | | | Pay-per-sale programs vs. Pay-Per-Lead |
| the publisher. We used 7 day EPC, which | | | | programs. For per-sale, the EPC was .36. For |
| measures EPC across the last seven days.The | | | | per-lead it was .67. Intutitively I would say |
| spider also only saves the top ten | | | | that advertisers pay more for sales than |
| advertisers in each category/subcategory, and | | | | leads, so the clickthrough on leads has to be |
| since some advertisers are in more than one | | | | much higher on CJ, which also seems correct |
| category/subcategory it tends to skew the | | | | since less of a commitment is required from |
| results a bit (higher). We came up with an | | | | the visitor for a lead than a sale. So if you |
| average of .56 (fifty-six cents) per click | | | | have a choice in programs between sale and |
| across the board averaging every category and | | | | lead, take the lead program.So what did we |
| subcategory.We've created a metric we call | | | | learn here? It seems to me that if your site |
| True EPC or TEPC, which measures the actual | | | | visitors would respond to banners or text |
| Earnings Per Single Click, rather than the | | | | links about mortgage financing, insurance, |
| earnings per hundred clicks that companies | | | | gardening or web services, add some CJ |
| like CJ use to make the numbers look | | | | banners to the mix. What the heck, add them |
| bigger.Note: I only included the first 5 | | | | anyway if you have room, because |
| categories here, and only part of the data. | | | | experimentation is important to success in |
| All of the data can be found at a very | | | | affiliate marketing. If you have a site with |
| interesting list by category:Category True | | | | content that fits those categories or is a |
| EPC / Top Ad & TEPCFinancial Services $ 2.41 | | | | general interest or entertainment site, there |
| Get Smart $ 32.98 | | | | are many good programs to choose from at |
| | | | CJ.Lastly, I did a quick comparison of the |
| Insurance $ 1.25 / American Life $ 2.98 | | | | average Adsense payout (using 80% of the |
| | | | average of keyword bids for different |
| Home & Garden $ 1.16 / Sunsetter $ 8.21 | | | | categories), and Adsense comes out a better |
| | | | EPC about a quarter of the time. So check |
| Web Services $ 1.13 / Yahoo Hosting $ 3.75 | | | | Adsense first before you put up a CJ ad that |
| | | | has an EPC of a dollar or more. A big banner |
| Computer & Electronics $ 0.87 | | | | ad vs. an Adsense ad may seem like a good |
| | | | idea because more exposure may translate into |
| Accessories $ 0.80 | | | | more clicks, but you can fit three Adsense |
| | | | text ads in that banner space.There are many |
| Health & Beauty $ 0.76What does it all mean? | | | | hidden insights in the data, and I encourage |
| Well, to me it means that if you have a | | | | you to go to the website, print out the page |
| website that gets visitors interested in | | | | and take a look. There might be some |
| Loans, Insurance, Sunsetter awnings or Yahoo | | | | terrific-paying programs you can ad to your |
| hosting, you should be a member of Commission | | | | website.I'd like to put together a free |
| Junction.More generally, if you think you can | | | | weekly email service that provides stats like |
| get decent clickthrough on Finance, Home & | | | | the ones on this page. If this is something |
| Garden, Insurance or Web Services, I would | | | | you might be interested in, drop me a |
| include some Commission Junction ads.Some | | | | line.Matt DeAngelis runs Matt is the former |
| commentary on the top 4 ads: what strikes me | | | | CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet |
| right off the bat is that the little Yahoo | | | | ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet |
| text ad at #4 pulls almost four bucks. I | | | | revolution, Matt devised the technology |
| actually signed up for that program myself, | | | | behind many of the most successful ad |
| and I'm going to put it on this site when I | | | | campaigns of the time. |